Russell's Unknown Logicism A Study in the History and Philosophy of Mathematics

by Gandon, Sebastien

• ISBN13: 9780230576995
• ISBN10: 0230576990
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2012-10-02
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

One hundred years ago, Russell and Whitehead published their epoch-makingPrincipia Mathematica(PM), which was initially conceived as the second volume of Russell'sPrinciples of Mathematics(PoM) that had appeared ten years before. No other works can be credited to have had such an impact on the development of logic and on philosophy in the twentieth century. However, until now, scholars only focused on the first parts of the books that is, on Russell's and Whitehead's theory of logic, set-theory and arithmetic. Sebastien Gandon aims at reversing the perspective. His goal is to give a picture of Russell's logicism based on a detailed reading of the developments dealing with advanced mathematics - namely projective geometry and the theory of quantity. This book is not only the first study ever made of the 'later' portions of PoM and PM, it also shows how this shift of perspective compels us to change our view of the logicist program taken as a whole.

Author Biography

SEBASTIEN GANDON Professor of Philosophy at the Universite Blaise Pascal, Clermont-Ferrand, France.