On the history of logic in the Russian Empire (1850–1917)

Abstract

In 1850 a very important decision for the whole history of humanities and social sciences in Russia was made by Nicholas I, the Emperor of Russia: to eliminate the teaching of philosophy in public universities in order to protect the regime from the Enlightenment ideas. Only logic and experimental psychology were permitted, but only if taught by theology professors. On the one hand, this decision caused the development of the Russian theistic philosophy enhanced by modern methodology represented by logic and psychology of that time. On the other hand, investigations in symbolic logic performed mainly at the Kazan University and the Odessa University were a bit marginal. Because of the theistic nature of general logic, from 1850 to 1917 in Russia there was a gap between philosophical and mathematical logics.