Sets and Extensions in the Twentieth Century (Volume 6) (Handbook of the History of Logic, Volume 6)

Set theory is an autonomous and sophisticated field of mathematics that is extremely successful at analyzing mathematical propositions and gauging their consistency strength. It is as a field of mathematics that both proceeds with its own internal questions and is capable of contextualizing over a broad range, which makes set theory an intriguing and highly distinctive subject. This handbook covers the rich history of scientific turning points in set theory, providing fresh insights and points of view. Written by leading researchers in the field, both this volume and the Handbook as a whole are definitive reference tools for senior undergraduates, graduate students and researchers in mathematics, the history of philosophy, and any discipline such as computer science, cognitive psychology, and artificial intelligence, for whom the historical background of his or her work is a salient consideration Serves as a singular contribution to the intellectual history of the 20th century Contains the latest scholarly discoveries and interpretative insights "Starting at the very beginning with Aristotle's founding contributions, logic has been graced by several periods in which the subject has flourished, attaining standards of rigour and conceptual sophistication underpinning a large and deserved reputation as a leading expression of human intellectual effort. It is widely recognized that the period from the mid-nineteenth century until the three-quarter mark of the century just past marked one of these golden ages, a period of explosive creativity and transforming insights. It has been said that ignorance of our history is a kind of amnesia, concerning which it is wise to note that amnesia is an illness. It would be a matter for regret, if we lost contact with another of logic's golden ages, one that greatly exceeds in reach that enjoyed by mathematical symbolic logic. This is the period between the eleventh and sixteenth centuries, loosely conceived of as the Middle Ages. The logic of this period does not have the expressive virtues afforded by the symbolic resources of uninterpreted calculi, but mediaeval logic rivals in range, originality and intellectual robustness a good deal of the modern record. The range of logic in this period is striking, extending from investigation of quantifiers and logic consequence to enquiries into logical truth; from theories of reference to accounts of identity; from work on the modalities to the stirrings of the logic of relations, from theories of meaning to analyses of the paradoxes, and more. While the scope of mediaeval logic is impressive, of greater importance is that nearly all of it can be read by the modern logician with at least some prospect of profit. The last thing that mediaeval logic is, is a museum piece."--Publisher's website

Set theory is an autonomous and sophisticated field of mathematics that is extremely successful at analyzing mathematical propositions and gauging their consistency strength. It is as a field of mathematics that both proceeds with its own internal questions and is capable of contextualizing over a broad range, which makes set theory an intriguing and highly distinctive subject. This handbook covers the rich history of scientific turning points in set theory, providing fresh insights and points of view. Written by leading researchers in the field, both this volume and the Handbook as a whole are definitive reference tools for senior undergraduates, graduate students and researchers in mathematics, the history of philosophy, and any discipline such as computer science, cognitive psychology, and artificial intelligence, for whom the historical background of his or her work is a salient consideration

• Serves as a singular contribution to the intellectual history of the 20th century
• Contains the latest scholarly discoveries and interpretative insights

In designing the Handbook of the History of Logic, the Editors have taken the view that the history of logic holds more than an antiquarian interest, and that a knowledge of logic's rich and sophisticated development is, in various respects, relevant to the research programmes of the present day. Ancient logic is no exception. The present volume attests to the distant origins of some of modern logic's most important features, such as can be found in the claim by the authors of the chapter on Aristotle's early logic that, from its infancy, the theory of the syllogism is an example of an intuitionistic, non-monotonic, relevantly paraconsistent logic. Similarly, in addition to its comparative earliness, what is striking about the best of the Megarian and Stoic traditions is their sophistication and originality