Goedel, Tarski and the Lure of Natural Language: Logical Entanglement, Formalism Freeness

Description

Is mathematics 'entangled' with its various formalisations? Or are the central concepts of mathematics largely insensitive to formalisation, or 'formalism free'? What is the semantic point of view and how is it implemented in foundational practice? Does a given semantic framework always have an implicit syntax? Inspired by what she calls the 'natural language moves' of Goedel and Tarski, Juliette Kennedy considers what roles the concepts of 'entanglement' and 'formalism freeness' play in a range of logical settings, from computability and set theory to model theory and second order logic, to logicality, developing an entirely original philosophy of mathematics along the way. The treatment is historically, logically and set-theoretically rich, and topics such as naturalism and foundations receive their due, but now with a new twist.

Juliette Kennedy is Associate Professor of Mathematics and Statistics at the University of Helsinki. Her research focuses on set theory, history of logic and philosophy of mathematics, and she is Editor of Interpreting Goedel: Critical Essays (Cambridge, 2014).

'Kennedy creatively embeds Goedel's ideal of 'formalism freeness' into myriad results in contemporary logic and foundations of mathematics, offering novel historical reconstructions of Tarski and Turing. A cutting-edge work of philosophy that synthesizes, while going beyond, our current ideas about foundations.' Juliet Floyd, Boston University