Descripciones mejoradas de Syndetics:

Newton/Descartes. Einstein/Godel. The seventeenth century had its scientific and philosophical geniuses. Why shouldn't ours have them as well? Kurt Godel was indisputably one of the greatest thinkers of our time, and in this first extended treatment of his life and work, Hao Wang, who was in close contact with Godel in his last years, brings out the full subtlety of Godel's ideas and their connection with grand themes in the history of mathematics and philosophy. The subjects he covers include the completeness of elementary logic, the limits of formalization, the problem of evidence, the concept of set, the philosophy of mathematics, time, and relativity theory, metaphysics and religion, as well as general ideas on philosophy as a worldview. Wang, whose reflections on his colleague also serve to clarify his own philosophical thoughts, distinguishes his ideas from those of Godel's and on points of agreement develops Godel's views further. The book provides a generous array of information on and interpretation of the two main phases of Godel's career - the years between 1924 and 1939 at the University of Vienna, which were marked by intense mathematical creativity, and the period from 1940 to his death in 1978, during which he was affiliated with the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton, a time in which Godel's interests steadily shifted from questions of logic to metaphysics. And it also examines Godel's relations with the Vienna Circle, his philosophical differences with Carnap and Wittgenstein, the intimate and mutually fruitful friendship with Einstein, and the periodic bouts of depression for which Godel was hospitalized a number of times over the course of his life. Hao Wang is Professor of Logic at The Rockefeller University and author of scores of articles and several books on logic, computers, and philosophy, including From Mathematics to Philosophy (extensively discussed with Godel and containing contributions by him) and Beyond Analytic Philosophy: Doing Justice to What We Know (MIT Press Bradford Books). He is currently preparing a companion volume, Conversations with Kurt Godelwhich will concentrate on Godel's unpublished ideas. A Bradford Book.

Reseñas proporcionadas por Syndetics

Library Journal Review

Wang, professor of logic at Rockefeller University, was personally acquainted with Godel in his last years, and relies on recollected conversations as well as published and unpublished material in this first extended treatment of Godel's life and work. Known primarily as a mathematician/logician from his published work, Godel's extensive unpublished work, says Wang, contains ``bold speculations on several perennial issues of universal concern.'' Those issues are only hinted at here, as most of the philosophical discussion concerns the philosophy of mathematics. Wang promises a future book dealing with Godel's Nachlass. Because material now available on Godel is limited, this somewhat rambling, anecdotal account is essential for pertinent subject collections. Leon H. Brody, U.S. Office of Personnel Management Lib., Washington, D.C. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

CHOICE Review

The great mathematician-logician Kurt Godel (1906-1978) belongs in the rarefied company that includes Freud, Einstein, and Heisenberg for having discovered, in his Incompleteness Theorem, one of those unexpected, self-referential, disconcerting 20th-century truths that apparently put a permanent lid on the possibility of our ever acquiring ultimate objective knowledge of the world. Wang first wrote to Godel in 1967, posing a number of mathematical/philosophical queries, and thus initiated a warm personal and professional relationship with the shy, reclusive thinker. Wang's fascinating though not especially well organized book is by way of a profound, discursive meditation on the life and work of a true genius-a man who, though plagued throughout his life by mental and physical illness, practiced ``consistency'' in his day-to-day existence, who let his intellectual courage and integrity direct his thought beyond the constraints of ``the prejudices of the time.'' Thus Godel also believed that rocks have ``experience'' and that an afterlife, never having been disproved, is a reasonable supposition. Wang also discourses on how Godel's philosophical ideas influenced his own; he emerges from this invaluable book as a brilliant and original thinker himself. Recommended for public, college, and university collections-M. Schiff, College of Staten Island, CUNY