Overview

Paolo Mancosu presents a series of innovative studies in the history and the philosophy of logic and mathematics in the first half of the twentieth century. The Adventure of Reason is divided into five main sections: history of logic (from Russell to Tarski); foundational issues (Hilbert's program, constructivity, Wittgenstein, Gödel); mathematics and phenomenology (Weyl, Becker, Mahnke); nominalism (Quine, Tarski); semantics (Tarski, Carnap, Neurath). Mancosu exploits extensive untapped archival sources to make available a wealth of new material that deepens in significant ways our understanding of these fascinating areas of modern intellectual history. At the same time, the book is a contribution to recent philosophical debates, in particular on the prospects for a successful nominalist reconstruction of mathematics, the nature of finitist intuition, the viability of alternative definitions of logical consequence, and the extent to which phenomenology can hope to account for the exact sciences.

Full Product Details

Author:   Paolo Mancosu (University of California Berkeley)
Publisher:   Oxford University Press
Imprint:   Oxford University Press
Dimensions:   Width: 18.10cm , Height: 4.00cm , Length: 25.40cm
Weight:   1.272kg
ISBN:  

9780199546534

ISBN 10:   0199546533
Pages:   632
Publication Date:   18 November 2010
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   To order  
Stock availability from the supplier is unknown. We will order it for you and ship this item to you once it is received by us.

Table of Contents

"Preface Part 1: History of Logic 1: The Development of Mathematical Logic from Russell to Tarski, 1900-1935 Oart 2: Foundations of Mathematics 2: Hilbert and Bernays on Metamathematics 3: Between Russell and Hilbert: Behmann on the foundations of mathematics 4: The Russellian influence on Hilbert and his school 5: On the constructivity of proofs 6: Wittgenstein's constructivization of Euler's proof of the infinitude of primes 7: Between Vienna and Berlin: The immediate reception of Gödel's incompleteness theorems 8: Essay Review of Gödel's Collected Works (volumes IV and V) Part 3: Phenomenology and Mathematics 9: Hermann Weyl: Predicativity and an intuitionistic excursion 10: Mathematics and Phenomenology: the correspondence between O. Becker and H. Weyl 11: Geometry, Physics and Phenomenology: Four letters of O. Becker to H. Weyl 12: Das Abenteuer der Vernunft: O. Becker and D. Mahnke on the phenomenological foundation of the exact sciences Part 4: Nominalism 13: Harvard 1940-1941: Tarski, Carnap and Quine on a finitist language of mathematics for science 14: Quine and Tarski on nominalism Part 5: The emergence of semantics: truth and logical consequence 15: Neurath and Kokoszynska on the semantic conception of truth 16: Tarski on models and logical consequence 17: Tarski on Categoricity and Completeness: an unpublished lecture from 1940 18: Archival Appendix. ""On the completeness and categoricity of deductive theories"" (1940), By Alfred Tarski. Bibliography"

Reviews

This book contains an enormous amount of material that historians will wish to consult. Mancosu convincingly demonstrates that there is a great deal more that we can still learn about the origins of modern mathematical logic. Michael Potter, Philosophia Mathematica

Author Information

Paolo Mancosu is Professor of Philosophy at University of California Berkeley. His main interests are in logic, history and philosophy of mathematics, and history and philosophy of logic.

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