March 8, 2007

  • Boolean Basics:

    Introduction to Logic
    for International Women's Day

    "The logic behind such utterances is the logic
    of binary opposition, the principle of non-contra-
    diction, often thought of as the very essence of
    Logic as such....

    Now, my understanding of what is most radical
    in deconstruction is precisely that it questions
    this basic logic of binary opposition....

    Instead of a simple 'either/or' structure,
    deconstruction attempts to elaborate a discourse
    that says neither "either/or", nor "both/and"
    nor even "neither/nor", while at the same time
    not totally abandoning these logics either."

    -- Harvard professor Barbara Johnson
    in "Nothing Fails Like Success."
    (See the previous entry, Day Without Logic.)


    The 16 Binary Connectives, with Venn Diagrams

    Click to enlarge.

    Those who value literary theory
    more than they value truth
    may prefer, on this
    International Women's Day,
    the "mandorla" interpretation
    of the above diagrams.

    For this interpretation, see
    Death and the Spirit III,
    Burning Bright,
    and
    The Agony and the Ya-Ya.