The Palgrave centenary companion to \textit{Principia mathematica} (Q385947)

This is a collection of essays grouped under four headings: (1) the influence of \textit{Principia mathematica} (henceforth \textit{PM}); (2) Russell's philosophy of logic and logicism; (3) type theory and ontology; (4) mathematics in \textit{PM}. (1) In ``\textit{Principia mathematica}: the first 100 years'' (pp. 3--20), \textit{A. Urquhart} looks at the fate of \textit{PM} and its rather sudden demise as the fundamental text for mathematical logic it had been all the way up to 1931, appearing prominently in the title of Gödel's famous incompleteness paper. Looking at its citation frequency in the \textit{Journal of Symbolic Logic}, he notes its ``complete eclipse'' in the year 1951. This is explained by the role Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory gradually took as the foundation of mathematics, by the failures of logicism, by Hilbert's rephrasing of the main problems of the foundations of mathematics. Its greatest and most enduring influence is seen in the various type theories, and in the inspiration Gödel got from the ramified hierarchy of types, which he extended to transfinite type levels to invent the universe of constructible sets. In ``David Hilbert and \textit{Principia mathematica}'' (pp. 21--34), \textit{R. Kahle} looks at the ``catalytic'' influence \textit{PM} had on Hilbert and his school (``it was essential in the formulation of modern logic, as promoted by Hilbert, but its conceptual framework was soon superseded by other accounts'' (p. 32). In ``\textit{Principia mathematica} in Poland'' (pp. 35--55), \textit{J. Woleński} looks at the influence of \textit{PM} on Polish logicians, with special emphasis on Leon Chwistek, Stanisław Lesńieski, and Alfred Tarski. (2) Regarding the crucial question, why Russell never formulated a completeness theorem, nor asked a question in that regard, and thought a proof of the independence of deduction rules or logical axioms was not possible, \textit{P. Blanchette}, in ``From logicism to metatheory'' (pp. 59--78), persuasively argues against B. Dreben, W. Goldfarb, T. Ricketts, and J. van Heijenoort that it was not logicism \textit{per se} or an attitude akin to Frege's that prevented Russell from accepting these metatheoretical results. A very close reading of Russell's texts reveals that only ``when it comes to the fundamental principles of logic Russell is a Fregean: the principles themselves are not to be identified with formulas of the calculus, but are what's expressed under only one, i.e. the canonical, interpretation of the logical connectives.'' (p. 76) Russell does allow for reinterpretations of the vocabulary of all specifically mathematical theories (such as geometry). Free and bound variables, the theory of denoting, changes from the first to the second edition of \textit{PM} affecting universal quantification, are dealt with in the essay of \textit{E. Mares}, ``Russell on real variables and vague denotation'' (pp. 79--95). In ``The logic of classes of the no-class theory'' (pp. 96--129), \textit{B.-u. Yi} critically examines the theory of classes in \textit{PM} and finds that ``the logical notion of class is a fiction of logic'' (p. 123). In ``Why there is no Frege-Russell definition of number'' (pp. 130--160), \textit{J. Galaugher} focuses on the major difference between Frege's definition of number and Russell's account of cardinal number throughout his writings. (3) \textit{G. Landini} offers, in ``\textit{Principia mathematica}: \(\varphi!\) versus \(\varphi\)'' (pp. 163--217), an overview of his own reinterpretation, along with a ``nominalist semantics'', of \textit{PM}, presented in [Russell's hidden substitutional theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press (1998; Zbl 0933.03002)], and argues against Church's ``widely influential interpretation''. A different nominalist interpretation is offered by \textit{K. C. Klement} in ``\textit{PM}'s circumflex, syntax and philosophy of types'' (pp. 218--246). In ``\textit{Principia mathematica}, the multiple-relation theory of judgment and molecular facts'' (pp. 247--304), \textit{J. Levine} finds several traces of metaphysics in writings from 1903, 1911 and 1913, mathematics being ``concerned with entities that have being but not existence'' and allowing ``molecular facts'' among the truth-makers, and finds the above-mentioned nominalistic interpretations problematic. The ramified theory of types expressed in the logic of the \(\lambda\)-calculus is the subject of a quite technical essay by \textit{H. T. Hodes}, ``Report on some ramified-type assignment systems and their model-theoretic semantics'' (pp. 305--336). A ramified type theory was no longer needed to avoid set-theoretic paradoxes (for which, as shown by Ramsey, the simple theory of types suffices). Semantic paradoxes, however, were not banned by the simple theory of types. Inspired by \textit{S. Kripke}'s [J. Philos. 72, 690--716 (1975; Zbl 0952.03513)] treatment of semantic paradoxes, \textit{D. Tucker}, in ``Outline of a theory of quantification'' (pp. 337--365), puts forward a new theory of quantification, together with a theory of ``compressed ramification'', and shows how it resolves paradoxes. (4) In ``Whatever happened to group theory?'' (pp. 369--390), \textit{N. Griffin} looks at one item of the mathematics of those times that is left out of \textit{PM}: group theory. Although Russell was well aware of its importance, and in a 1900 draft, group theory gets its place, it is later considered to be subsumed under the concept of a set. The abstract of a paper on group theory read by Whitehead in 1899 to the Royal Society -- in which he writes that the ``idea of the group is no longer so absorbing; the set takes its place as the fundamental general entity which has to be investigated'', since a group is a ``special type of set'' -- makes that conclusion plausible. The four different proofs of the Cantor-Schröder-Bernstein theorem that are found in \textit{PM} -- each depending on different parts of the formal system, as well as the consequences on the first proof of the dropping of the axiom reducibility in the second edition of \textit{PM} -- are the subject of the essay by \textit{A. Hinkis}, ``Proofs of the Cantor-Bernstein theorem in \textit{Principia mathematica}'' (pp. 391--412). \textit{S. Gandon}'s essay ``On quantity and number in \textit{Principia mathematica}: a plea for an ontological interpretation of the application constraint'' (pp. 413--434) is devoted to the least studied parts of \textit{PM}, namely the last part of Volume III, which contains the theory of measurement and of real numbers.