This paper addresses the question of the nature and extent of the impact that the new experimental natural philosophy that emerged in the second half of the seventeenth century had on the discipline of logic or the art of thinking. It does so through the examination of the writings of three logicians whose works appeared in the first half of the eighteenth century, namely, Jean-Pierre de Crousaz, Isaac Watts, and William Duncan. Through an examination of references to experimental philosophy in their logic texts, with a special focus on their sections on method, the paper argues that experimental philosophy did, indeed, have an impact; an impact that increases in importance over time. Experimental philosophy was not simply used for illustrative purposes but was integrated into their accounts of induction and the methods of analysis and synthesis. The logics under consideration show the legacy of developments within late scholastic logic, the importance of the theory of principles, and the influence of leading philosophers such as Descartes, Pascal, and Locke.
Peter R. Anstey (Thu,) studied this question.