DID THE NEO-BABYLONIANS CONSTRUCT A SYMBOLIC LOGIC FOR LEGAL PROCEEDINGS?

In this paper, I show that the first proto-axiomatic system of symbolic logic was created within the Sumerian-Akkadian legal culture (i.e. much earlier than Aristotle and the Stoics lived) to make justice effective and transparent. The point is that there were excavated many well-preserved Neo-Babylonian trial records and we can reconstruct logically legal proceedings reported in them. There are direct evidences that their trial decisions were drawn automatically just by applying some inference rules. A very similar structure and the same perfect logicality are observed in legal documents in Aramaic and Greek from Elephantine. Hence, symbolic logic existed at least since the Neo-Babylonians and was preserved by Arameans and continued by Greeks.