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William Ernest Johnson (23 June 1858 - 14 January 1931) was a British logician mainly remembered for his Logic (1921-1924), in 3 volumes. In 1924, in volume III he introduced the important concept of exchangeability.
He taught at King's College, Cambridge for nearly thirty years. He wrote a bit on economics, and John Maynard Keynes was one of his students. Johnson was a colleague of Keynes's father, John Neville Keynes.
Logic was dated at the time of its publication, and Johnson
can be seen as a member of the British logic "old guard" pushed aside by
the Principia Mathematica of Alfred North Whitehead and Bertrand Russell.
Yet an article entitled "The Logical Calculus" (Johnson 1892) reveals
that he had nontrivial technical capabilities in his youth, and that he
was significantly influenced by the formal logical work of Charles Sanders Peirce. The article begins as follows:
"As a material machine economises the exertion of force, so a
symbolic calculus economises the exertion of intelligence ... the more
perfect the calculus, the smaller the intelligence compared to the
results."
A.N. Prior's Formal Logic cites this article several times.
John Passmore tells us:
"His neologisms, as rarely happens, have won wide acceptance: such
phrases as
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Created 2015-10-29 by Anna St.Onge.