#philip meguire

[perkwunos]

Martin’s logico-mathematical approach to metaphysics and cosmology has a very distinguished precedent: Whitehead. By insisting that metaphysical reasoning be firmly grounded in formal logic, Martin ([Logic, 1, 7, 8], [Events, 2], [Mind, 5]) agreed with the Whitehead who wrote: Speculative Philosophy is the endeavor to frame a coherent, logical, necessary system of general ideas in terms of which every element in our experience can be interpreted. ... It will be observed that logical notions must themselves find their places in the scheme of philosophic notions. [Whitehead (1978), 3], cited in [Events, p. 39] ... Martin drew on his event logic to formalize the process philosophy of Whitehead and Hartshorne, and to elucidate difficult passages in Process and Reality and Science and the Modern World ([Whitehead’s, 1, 4, 5], [Mind, 12]), going well beyond Whitehead’s principle of extensive abstraction. Finally, Martin was personally devoted to Whitehead: “It was my good fortune to have been a direct student of Whitehead’s during his very last year of teaching.” ([Logical, p. 200]). He dedicated [Truth] to Whitehead “my teacher and friend.”

Philip Meguire, Richard Milton Martin: American Logician