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Martin Cohen¡¯s review of If A then B: How?the World Discovered Logic (Books, 19?September) suggests that its authors, Michael Shenefelt and Heidi White, want to put logic at ¡°the heart of life¡±. Since life in the?real world has no obvious heart, we might consider the idea of putting logic to work within organisations: colleges, health centres, factories and so on. But how would Aristotle¡¯s syllogisms, Bayes¡¯ theorem or some other well-established branch of the discipline help to improve organisations, each burdened with historical problems and their own particular jargon, culture and mission?

Perhaps organisational members would have?to construct and debate a new form of notional logic not yet apparent to either the authors or Cohen.

Neil Richardson
Kirkheaton