Guest editor's introduction: JvH100 (Q1942085): Difference between revisions

Irving H.\ Anellis, a student of Jean van Heijenoort (1912--1986), edited, under the title ``Perspectives on the history and philosophy of modern logic: van Heijenoort centenary'', a special issue of the journal \textit{Logica Universalis} to commemorate the centennial of his teacher's birth. The article under review is the general introduction to that collection. (For the casual reader's convenience, we list the entire contents of that special issue below.) The author briefly sketches the life and work of Jean van Heijenoort (pp.~249--251) before he introduces all other contributions. These introductions vary considerably in length -- from one sentence (e.g., on Hin\-tik\-ka) to five pages (e.g., on Wirth). They often do not coincide with the boundaries of paragraphs nor are their beginnings always indicated by topic sentences, so a quick ``thumb index'' seems to be in order: pp.~251\,f.: Dawson -- pp.~252\,f.: Anellis (``historical development'' and ``historical perspective'') -- p.~253: Hintikka -- pp.~253\,ff.: Angelelli -- pp.~255--258: Wirth -- p.~259: Abeles -- p.~259: Anellis (``proof theory'') -- p.~259: Feferman -- pp.~259\,f: de Rouilhan -- p.~260\,f.: Woleński -- p.~261: Korhonen. Kreisel, we learn (p.~262), was prevented from finishing his contribution due to health issues. A bibliography covers the remaining pages (pp.~262--267). Reviewer's remarks. I feel expert readers won't miss much, if anything, when they decide to skip the editor's introduction. Authors have generally provided useful abstracts beyond which the introduction doesn't offer much additional guidance; the one exception might be on p.~257, where a noteworthy but, I believe, still little known discrepancy in the sources for Herbrand's unification algorithm is noted. Signs of poor copy-editing somewhat taint the reading experience: besides a number of typos, we see infelicitous formulations likely to cause some headache (e.g., p.~258: ``satisfiable proof'' or ``equivalence of propositional formulas with first-order formulas'') as well as odd word choices (e.g., p.~254: the neologism ``equinumerate'' instead of ``equinumerous''). Table of contents of the special issue: \textit{Irving H.\ Anellis}, ``Guest editor's introduction: JvH100'' [Log.\ Univers.~6, No.~3--4, 249--267 (2012; Zbl 1268.03002)]; \textit{Irving H.\ Anellis}, ``Scholarly publications of Jean van Heijenoort'' [ibid. 269--276 (2012; Zbl 1260.01016)]; \textit{A. B. Feferman}, ``Jean van Heijenoort: kaleidoscope'' [ibid. 277--291 (2012; Zbl 1260.01026)]; \textit{J. W.\ Dawson jun.}, ``Jean van Heijenoort and the Gödel editorial project'' [ibid. 293--299 (2012; Zbl 1260.03001)]; \textit{Irving H.\ Anellis}, ``Editor's introduction to Jean van Heijenoort, `Historical development of modern logic''' [ibid. 301--326 (2012; Zbl 1270.03007)]; \textit{J. van Heijenoort}, ``Historical development of modern logic'' [ibid. 327--337 (2012; Zbl 1268.03006)] -- note that the latter piece appeared already in [Mod.\ Log.~2, No.~3, 242--255 (1992; Zbl 0758.03004)]; \textit{Irving H.\ Anellis}, ``Jean van Heijenoort's conception of modern logic, in historical perspective'' [Log.\ Univers.~6, No.~3--4, 339--409 (2012; Zbl 1268.03003)]; \textit{Irving H.\ Anellis}, ``Jean van Heijenoort's contributions to proof theory and its history'' [ibid. 411--458 (2012; Zbl 1272.03001)]; \textit{J. Hintikka}, ``Which mathematical logic is the logic of mathematics?'' [ibid. 459--475 (2012; Zbl 1272.03024)]; \textit{I. Angelelli}, ``Frege's ancestral and its circularities'' [ibid. 477--483 (2012; Zbl 1272.03005)]; \textit{C.-P. Wirth}, ``Herbrand's fundamental theorem in the eyes of Jean van Heijenoort'' [ibid. 485--520 (2012; Zbl 1267.03054)]; \textit{F. F.\ Abeles}, ``Toward a visual proof system: Lewis Carroll's method of trees'' [ibid. 521--534 (2012; Zbl 1267.01028)]; \textit{S. Feferman}, ``On rereading van Heijenoort's selected essays'' [ibid. 535--552 (2012; Zbl 1263.03003)]; \textit{P. de Rouilhan}, ``In defense of logical universalism: taking issue with Jean van Heijenoort'' [ibid. 553--586 (2012; Zbl 1405.03018)]; \textit{Jan Wolseński}, ``Logic as calculus versus logic as language, language as calculus versus language as universal medium, and syntax versus semantics'' [ibid. 587--596 (2012; Zbl 1272.03048)]; \textit{A. Korhonen}, ``Logic as science and logic as a theory: remarks on Frege, Russell and the logocentric predicament'' [ibid. 597--613 (2012; Zbl 1272.03031)].