Paolo Mancosu - The Adventure of Reason. Interplay Between Philosophy of Mathematics and Mathematical Logic, 1900-1940 [2011][A]

Book Description
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, Godel); 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.

Review
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

About the Author
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.