Logic from Russell to Church (Q2433859)

For the reader interested in the history of mathematical logic, this is the most important volume of this \textit{Handbook}, containing all the major figures who started publishing during the first half of the 20th century. Most of its contributions look at the history of the subject by presenting the achievements of individual logicians, and only in very few contributions by pursuing the history of a topic. The chapters are very well written, offering cumulatively a wealth of historical information not to be found in any other single work on the subject. Except for Frege and Peano, all mathematical logicians of major significance that have started publishing between 1879 and 1945, are covered by experts in their subject. The chapter on the logic of Russell is authored by \textit{A. D. Irvine} [``Bertrand Russell's logic'', pp.\ 1--28], the one on the logic of Brouwer and Heyting by \textit{J. R. Moschovakis} [``The logic of Brouwer and Heyting'', pp.\ 77--125], the one on Skolem consists of \textit{H. Wang}'s introduction to [\textit{Th. Skolem}, Selected works in logic. Edited by Jens Erik Fenstad. Oslo-Bergen-Tromsö: Universitetsforlaget (1970; Zbl 0228.02001)], followed by an update by \textit{J. E. Fenstad} [``Thoralf Albert Skolem'', pp.\ 127--194], the one on Herbrand is authored by \textit{C.-P. Wirth}, \textit{J. Siekmann}, \textit{C. Benzmüller}, and \textit{S. Autexier} [``Jacques Herbrand: life, logic, and automated deduction'', pp.\ 195--254], the one on the logic of Wittgenstein's \textit{Tractatus} by \textit{M. Potter} [``The logic of the \textit{Tractatus}'', pp.\ 255--304], the one on Leśniewski's logic by \textit{P. M. Simons} [``Leśniewski's logic'', pp.\ 305--320], the one on Hilbert's proof theory by \textit{W. Sieg} [``Hilbert's proof theory'', pp.\ 321--384], the one on Hilbert's epsilon calculus and its successors by \textit{B. H. Slater} [``Hilbert's epsilon calculus and its successors'', pp.\ 385--448], the one on Gödel (on his results in both classical and intuitionistic logic and arithmetic) by \textit{M. van Atten} and \textit{J. Kennedy} [``Gödel's logic'', pp.\ 449--509], the one on Tarski by \textit{K. Simmons} [``Tarski's logic'', pp.\ 511--616], the one on Post by \textit{A. Urquhart} [``Emil Post'', pp.\ 617--666], the one on Gentzen by \textit{J. von Plato} [``Gentzen's logic'', pp.\ 667--721]. There is a chapter that belongs rather to philosophical logic and is more of a research paper, ``Logic for Meinongian object theory semantics'' (pp.\ 29--76) by \textit{D. Jacquette} (where the author seems to be unaware that there are indeed square circles (in planes with the Manhattan (taxicab) metric), as pointed out, with reference to Meinong, by \textit{K. Menger} [Reminiscences of the Vienna circle and the mathematical colloquium. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers (1994; Zbl 0961.01031), pp.\ 26--28]), and three that look at the history of a topic, two on the lambda-calculus, under the titles ``Lambda-calculus and combinators in the 20th century'' (pp.\ 723--817) by \textit{F. Cardone} and \textit{J. R. Hindley}, and ``The logic of Church and Curry'' (pp.\ 819--873) by \textit{J. P. Seldin}, and one on the history of paradoxes, self-reference and truth in the 20th century by \textit{A. Cantini} [``Paradoxes, self-reference and truth in the 20th century'', pp.\ 875--1013]. Some of the histories refer only to results from contemporaries with the logician studied, others follow the ideas as they developed through time. It is remarkable that even in the space of 1056 pages one simply cannot cover the topics treated exhaustively. To mention just a couple of omissions, the chapter on the logic of Brouwer and Heyting does not mention Griss's criticism of negation and his proposal of negationless intuitionistic logic, later axiomatized by Nelson and Krivtsov, and the one on Hilbert's proof theory does not mention \textit{M. Detlefsen} [Hilbert's program. An essay on mathematical instrumentalism. Dordrecht: D. Reidel (1986; Zbl 0641.03001)].