[FOM] Book on the history of logic?

[Irving]

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    Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2011 12:01:08 -0500
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Subject: FOM Digest, Vol 98, Issue 6
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> Dear FOMers,
>
> I'm planning to give a small course in the history of logic, with
> special focus on the 20th century. While I am planning to photocopy a
> selection of papers and hand out, it would be really useful to have a
> textbook as well. However, there seems to be very few modern
> textbooks in the history of logic. Kneale & Kneale, for instance,
> write fairly little on 20th century logic, and the other books I have
> found do it even less.
>
> So, does anyone here have any tips? Or, if not a book, at least some
> lengthier expositions in article form?
>
> Thanks in advance,
> Staffan Angere
> University of Lund
>
>
> ----- End message from fom-request at cs.nyu.edu -----

The most relevant volumes of Gabbay & Woods' Handbook of the History of 
Logic is:

vol. 5: Logic from Russell to Church

if you want to stay strictly within the 20th century, while parts of 
other volumes (e..g. on non-classical logics go beyond the early 20th 
century).

For 19th century background, the Handbook has:

vol. 3: The Rise of Modern Logic from Leibniz to Frege

and

vol. 4: British Logic in the Nineteenth Century

The publisher of the Handbook is North-Holland, and the price per 
volume would make the work prohibitive for most students.

A more manageable alternative, both from the financial standpoint and 
length is Ivor Grattan-Guinness's The Search for Mathematical Roots, 
1870-1940: Logics, Set Theories and the Foundations of Mathematics from 
Cantor through Gödel,published by Princeton University Press (2000). 
It's avaialble in paperback, but has the disadvantage of not going past 
the 1930s. For readings, Jean van Heijenoort's From Frege to Gödel: A 
Source Book of Mathematical Logic, 1879-1931 is still in print, and 
available now in paperback, but it too does not venture far into the 
20th century, and fails to give coverage to De Morgan, Boole, Perice, 
Schröder, Tarski, et al.

The chronological coverage is much wider in Leila Haaparanta (ed.), The 
Development of Modern Logic (Oxford U.P., 2000), which is oriented 
towards philosophy rather than mathematics.

The motivation for W.D. Hart's The Evolution of Logic (Cambridge U.P. 
2010) is to establish the relevance of mathematical logic for 
philosophy.

You also, of course, do what I did for a series of lecture on history 
of logic for philosophy graduate students at IUPUI, namely, prepare 
written hand-outs or typescripts or postings on your website for 
students of your lectures. If nothing else, that ensures that you cover 
exactly the material that you want to cover and the time frame that you 
want to cover, and at the depth that you want to cover the material.



Irving H. Anellis
Visiting Research Associate
Peirce Edition, Institute for American Thought
902 W. New York St.
Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis
Indianapolis, IN 46202-5159
USA
URL: http://www.irvinganellis.info