Origins of the Venn Diagram

Abstract

Venn diagrams have turned out to be visual tools that are enormously popular, but diagrams to help visualize relationships between classes or concepts in logic had existed prior to those of John Venn. The use of diagrams to demonstrate valid logical arguments has been found in the works of a few early Aristotelian scholars and appeared in the works of the famed mathematicians Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and Leonhard Euler. In a 1686 fragment (which remained unpublished for over 200 years), the universal genius Leibniz illustrated all of Aristotle’s valid syllogisms through circle drawings. In 1761, the much-admired master mathematician Euler used almost identical diagrams to explain the same logical syllogisms. One hundred and twenty years later, John Venn ingeniously altered what he called “Euler circles” to become the familiar diagrams attached to Venn’s name. This paper explores the history of the Venn diagram and its predecessors.