Paul Bernays and the Philosophy of Mathematics

FAIN: RZ-20592-00

Carnegie Mellon University (Pittsburgh, PA 15213-3815)
Wilfried D. Sieg (Project Director: September 1999 to present)

To support the preparation of a translation of the philosophical papers of Paul Bernays, a major contributor to resolving the logical and foundational questions of twenthieth-century mathematics.

Paul Bernays is arguably the greatest philosopher of mathematics in the twentieth century. As most of his work remains untranslated, neither the substance of his contribution to the development of foundations of mathematics nor the positive insights he has brought to it are sufficiently well-known in the English speaking sphere. Our project is to prepare and publish a volume of English translations of his papers on the philosophy of mathematics. We plan to include twenty-nine papers together with a list of his publications, a short biography, and substantive introductions to the texts.