Remarks on Mathematics and Logic: Volume III, 1939–1941
About this ebook
In 1956, a significant but abridged portion of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s 1937–1944 writings for a continuation of what became Philosophical Investigations was published as Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics. Now, in these five German-English facing-page volumes, the writings of Remarks on Mathematics and Logic are presented in full as Wittgenstein wrote them: in chronological order, without editorial omissions, selections, or rearrangements.
Volume III contains materials from 1939 to 1941, including previously unpublished—one manuscript and four manuscript parts—and one manuscript from which selections were made for previous abridgements.
The topics covered in this volume include surveyability and perspicuity in mathematics; Cantor and Gödel; Russellian logicism; geometrical cogency of proofs; consensus as part of the phenomenon of our calculating; rule-following and unwinding; consistency proofs; calculation as invention rather than discovery; superstitious fear of contradictions; why mathematicians cannot philosophize about mathematics; mathematical propositions are overdetermined; the idea of a mathematical reality; the connection between the sense of a mathematical proposition and its use; positioning a proposition in a system; an unproved mathematical proposition as the expression of a problem; the role of mathematical propositions in descriptions (of reality).
This edition will be the authoritative source for Wittgenstein’s writings in their original context.
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About the author
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) was one of the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century. He was born in Vienna, but studied and practiced philosophy in Great Britain. He was a professor of philosophy at the University of Cambridge from 1939 until 1947. He worked in—and transformed—the fields of logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. Victor Rodych is professor of philosophy at the University of Lethbridge. He is coauthor of Introduction to Logic, 15th Edition. Anne Dymek is assistant professor of comparative literature at Tulane University. She is the author of Cinéma et Sémiotique. Deleuze en Question.
