No label defined (Q3250587)

This book, written by a lecturer in Philosophy, has a double scope. First, it is a textbook for the student of symbolic logic. Second, it is said to constitute the first volume of a long series presenting for the first time the whole of mathematics in ``logically valid proofs''. In other words, the author sets out really to formalize the whole of mathematics, and so to disprove Bourbaki's: ``Mais la mathématique formalisée ne peut être écrite toute entière \dots, (Livre I, théorie des ensembles, introduction p. 6). It is clear, that it will be possible to judge the success of this enterprise only if some further volumes of the series will have appeared, and one may eagerly await a complete proof of e. g. Jordan's curve theorem in symbolic logic, with the whole tree of inferences. In this review, therefore, we will consider only the purely logical aspect of this text. Though the text is called ``introductory formal logics'', its emphasis is not on logical calculi, but on the theory of proof. Lukasiewicz's notation is used, together with a simplified version of Gentzen's proof-schemata, probably somewhat hard reading for the second-year students to whom the text is addressed. The usual theorems of the propositional calculus are formulated as Rules of Proof, with no justification (on an axiomatic base) offered. The formulation is incomplete. In II.\,14 \(C\, b_1\, b\) is permitted only for true \(b_1\). Further chapters are: (Every chapter has its own language defined at the outset; no general procedure of extending given languages is given, though for a derivation of more complicated mathematical structures such a procedure seems to be a conditio sine qua non): The Formula Calculus (deals with equality and inequality), Rules for the Quantificational Calculus (here also rules only are formulated and applied, without justification; no normal forms appear), Sets, Subsets and Complementation, Couples, Graphs, Unions, Intersections and Boolean Algebra. The treatment of these elementary parts of set theory seems to the reviewer a curious attempt to present naive set theory by the methods of symbolic logic. It is repeatedly stated (e. g. p. 66, 96) that all variables of the theory are sets (all classes are sets), and the universal set is explicitly introduced, even with the theorem \(Pm\,E\,m=1\,Pxx\in m\) though the author seems to feel something when he first defines subsets by \(PhmEh\subset mPxCx\in hx\in m\), and then he remarks: If we added \textit{set} to the alphabet, and added a clause to the effect that \(in\) set preceded by a set variable or constant set is a formula, then a more explicit version \dots would be \(PhmCKh \in \text{set }m\in \text{set } Eh\subset mPxCx \in hx \in m\). One has the impression that it should not be very difficult to derive Cantor's antinomy in the author's system, were there any well defined rules for the formation of sets; but so we are presented e. g. with the definition (p. 80): cop is a set, (where cop denotes the set of all couples) without any axiom or theorem on the existence of couples and of ``all'' sets. As a consequence, one should really hesitate to recommend the book as a text for the beginner. On the other hand, there are near to hundred complete proofs of simple theorems in set theory by the methods of symbolic logics, which should constitute really excellent material for exercises to accompany a technical course in logics. (More than the exercises at the end of the book, where we find no. 75: If all continuous functions are differentiable and some functions are not differentiable, then some functions are not continuous.) One interesting feature of the book has to be noted: The symbols have been changed in order to make the whole typeable, without handwritten signs. So \(\in\) becomes: \(.,\subset\) is ( , complementation is \dots etc.