Alfred Tarski

Life and Logic

Solomon Feferman, Anita Burdman Feferman

425 pages, parution le 23/11/2004

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Résumé

Alfred Tarski, one of the greatest logicians of all time, is widely thought of as 'the man who defined truth'. His mathematical work on the concepts of truth and logical consequence are cornerstones of modern logic, influencing developments in philosophy, linguistics and computer science. Tarski was a charismatic teacher and zealous promoter of his view of logic as the foundation of all rational thought, a bon-vivant and a womanizer, who played the 'great man' to the hilt. Born in Warsaw in 1901 to Jewish parents, he changed his name and converted to Catholicism, but was never able to obtain a professorship in his home country. A fortuitous trip to the United States at the outbreak of war saved his life and turned his career around, even while it separated him from his family for years. By the war's end he was established as a professor of mathematics at the University of California, Berkeley. There Tarski built an empire in logic and methodology that attracted students and distinguished researchers from all over the world. From the cafes of Warsaw and Vienna to the mountains and deserts of California, this first full length biography places Tarski in the social, intellectual and historical context of his times and presents a frank, vivid picture of a personally and professionally passionate man, interlaced with an account of his major scientific achievements.

L'auteur - Solomon Feferman

SOLOMON FEFERMAN is on the faculty of Stanford University, where he is professor of mathematics and philosophy. He is a recipient of the RolfSchock Prize in Logic and Philosophy, a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and has held a Guggenheim fellowship twice. He is the author of In the Light of Logic and the editor-in-chief of the multivolume Kurt Godel: Collected Works. He was one of Tarski's students at UC Berkeley in the 19505.

L'auteur - Anita Burdman Feferman

ANITA BURDMAN FEFERMAN is an independent scholar and writer. She is the author of Politics, Logic and love: The Life of Jean van Heijenoort (published in paperback as From Trotsky to Godel : The Life of Jean van Heijenoort). She knew Alfred Tarski socially for thirty years.

Sommaire

The two Tarskis
Independence and university;
Interlude I. The Banach-Tarski paradox, set theory and the axiom of choice
Polot! The Polish attribute
Interlude II. The completeness and decidability of algebra and geometry
A wider sphere of influence
Interlude III. Truth and definability
How the 'unity of science' saved Tarski's Life
Berkeley is so far from Princeton
Building a school
Interlude IV. The publication campaigns
'Papa Tarski' and his students
Three meetings and two departures
Logic and methodology, center stage
Heydays
Interlude V. Model theory and the 1963 Symposium
Around the world
Los Angeles and Berkeley; Interlude VI. Algebras of logic
A decade of honors
The last times

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Caractéristiques techniques

	PAPIER
Éditeur(s)	Cambridge University Press
Auteur(s)	Solomon Feferman, Anita Burdman Feferman
Parution	23/11/2004
Nb. de pages	425
Format	15,5 x 23,5
Couverture	Relié
Poids	719g
Intérieur	Noir et Blanc
EAN13	9780521802406
ISBN13	978-0-521-80240-6