Penelope Maddy
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Penelope Maddy
Penelope Maddy (born 4 July 1950) is an American philosopher. Maddy is Emerita UCI Distinguished Professor of Logic and Philosophy of Science and of Mathematics at the University of California, Irvine. She is well known for her influential work in the philosophy of mathematics, where she has worked on mathematical realism (especially set-theoretic realism) and mathematical naturalism. Education and career Maddy received her Ph.D. from Princeton University in 1979. Her dissertation, ''Set Theoretical Realism'', was supervised by John P. Burgess. She taught at the University of Notre Dame and University of Illinois, Chicago before joining Irvine in 1987. She was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1998. The German Mathematical Society awarded her a Gauss Lectureship in 2006. Philosophical work Maddy's early work, culminating in ''Realism in Mathematics'', defended Kurt Gödel's position that mathematics is a true description of a mind-i ...
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Western Philosophy
Western philosophy encompasses the philosophical thought and work of the Western world. Historically, the term refers to the philosophical thinking of Western culture, beginning with the ancient Greek philosophy of the pre-Socratics. The word ''philosophy'' itself originated from the Ancient Greek (φιλοσοφία), literally, "the love of wisdom" grc, φιλεῖν , "to love" and σοφία '' sophía'', "wisdom"). History Ancient The scope of ancient Western philosophy included the problems of philosophy as they are understood today; but it also included many other disciplines, such as pure mathematics and natural sciences such as physics, astronomy, and biology (Aristotle, for example, wrote on all of these topics). Pre-Socratics The pre-Socratic philosophers were interested in cosmology; the nature and origin of the universe, while rejecting mythical answers to such questions. They were specifically interested in the (the cause or first principle) of the ...
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Set-theoretic
Set theory is the branch of mathematical logic that studies sets, which can be informally described as collections of objects. Although objects of any kind can be collected into a set, set theory, as a branch of mathematics, is mostly concerned with those that are relevant to mathematics as a whole. The modern study of set theory was initiated by the German mathematicians Richard Dedekind and Georg Cantor in the 1870s. In particular, Georg Cantor is commonly considered the founder of set theory. The non-formalized systems investigated during this early stage go under the name of ''naive set theory''. After the discovery of paradoxes within naive set theory (such as Russell's paradox, Cantor's paradox and the Burali-Forti paradox) various axiomatic systems were proposed in the early twentieth century, of which Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory (with or without the axiom of choice) is still the best-known and most studied. Set theory is commonly employed as a foundational system fo ...
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Cabal (set Theory)
The Cabal was, or perhaps is, a set of set theorists in Southern California, particularly at UCLA and Caltech, but also at UC Irvine. Organization and procedures range from informal to nonexistent, so it is difficult to say whether it still exists or exactly who has been a member, but it has included such notable figures as Donald A. Martin, Yiannis N. Moschovakis, John R. Steel, and Alexander S. Kechris. Others who have published in the proceedings of the Cabal seminar include Robert M. Solovay, W. Hugh Woodin, Matthew Foreman, and Steve Jackson. The work of the group is characterized by free use of large cardinal In the mathematical field of set theory, a large cardinal property is a certain kind of property of transfinite cardinal numbers. Cardinals with such properties are, as the name suggests, generally very "large" (for example, bigger than the least Î ... axioms, and research into the descriptive set theoretic behavior of sets of reals if such assumptions hold. Some ...
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Axiom
An axiom, postulate, or assumption is a statement that is taken to be true, to serve as a premise or starting point for further reasoning and arguments. The word comes from the Ancient Greek word (), meaning 'that which is thought worthy or fit' or 'that which commends itself as evident'. The term has subtle differences in definition when used in the context of different fields of study. As defined in classic philosophy, an axiom is a statement that is so evident or well-established, that it is accepted without controversy or question. As used in modern logic, an axiom is a premise or starting point for reasoning. As used in mathematics, the term ''axiom'' is used in two related but distinguishable senses: "logical axioms" and "non-logical axioms". Logical axioms are usually statements that are taken to be true within the system of logic they define and are often shown in symbolic form (e.g., (''A'' and ''B'') implies ''A''), while non-logical axioms (e.g., ) are actually ...
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Set Theory
Set theory is the branch of mathematical logic that studies sets, which can be informally described as collections of objects. Although objects of any kind can be collected into a set, set theory, as a branch of mathematics, is mostly concerned with those that are relevant to mathematics as a whole. The modern study of set theory was initiated by the German mathematicians Richard Dedekind and Georg Cantor in the 1870s. In particular, Georg Cantor is commonly considered the founder of set theory. The non-formalized systems investigated during this early stage go under the name of '' naive set theory''. After the discovery of paradoxes within naive set theory (such as Russell's paradox, Cantor's paradox and the Burali-Forti paradox) various axiomatic systems were proposed in the early twentieth century, of which Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory (with or without the axiom of choice) is still the best-known and most studied. Set theory is commonly employed as a foundational ...
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Wittgenstein
Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein ( ; ; 26 April 1889 – 29 April 1951) was an Austrians, Austrian-British people, British philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. He is considered by some to be the greatest philosopher of the 20th century. From 1929 to 1947, Wittgenstein taught at the University of Cambridge. In spite of his position, during his entire life only one book of #Legacy, his philosophy was published, the 75-page ''Logisch-Philosophische Abhandlung'' (''Logical-Philosophical Treatise'', 1921), which appeared, together with an English translation, in 1922 under the Latin title ''Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus''. His only other published works were an article, "Some Remarks on Logical Form" (1929); a book review; and a children's dictionary. #Works, His voluminous manuscripts were edited and published posthumously. The first and best-known of this posthumous series is the 1953 b ...
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Epistemology
Epistemology (; ), or the theory of knowledge, is the branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge. Epistemology is considered a major subfield of philosophy, along with other major subfields such as ethics, logic, and metaphysics. Epistemologists study the nature, origin, and scope of knowledge, epistemic justification, the rationality of belief, and various related issues. Debates in epistemology are generally clustered around four core areas: # The philosophical analysis of the nature of knowledge and the conditions required for a belief to constitute knowledge, such as truth and justification # Potential sources of knowledge and justified belief, such as perception, reason, memory, and testimony # The structure of a body of knowledge or justified belief, including whether all justified beliefs must be derived from justified foundational beliefs or whether justification requires only a coherent set of beliefs # Philosophical skepticism, which questions the possibili ...
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Metaphysics
Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality, the first principles of being, identity and change, space and time, causality, necessity, and possibility. It includes questions about the nature of consciousness and the relationship between mind and matter, between substance and attribute, and between potentiality and actuality. The word "metaphysics" comes from two Greek words that, together, literally mean "after or behind or among he study ofthe natural". It has been suggested that the term might have been coined by a first century CE editor who assembled various small selections of Aristotle's works into the treatise we now know by the name ''Metaphysics'' (μετὰ Ï„á½° φυσικά, ''meta ta physika'', 'after the ''Physics'' ', another of Aristotle's works). Metaphysics studies questions related to what it is for something to exist and what types of existence there are. Metaphysics seeks to answer, in an abstract and fu ...
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Willard Van Orman Quine
Willard Van Orman Quine (; known to his friends as "Van"; June 25, 1908 – December 25, 2000) was an American philosopher and logician in the analytic tradition, recognized as "one of the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century". From 1930 until his death 70 years later, Quine was continually affiliated with Harvard University in one way or another, first as a student, then as a professor. He filled the Edgar Pierce Chair of Philosophy at Harvard from 1956 to 1978. Quine was a teacher of logic and set theory. Quine was famous for his position that first order logic is the only kind worthy of the name, and developed his own system of mathematics and set theory, known as New Foundations. In philosophy of mathematics, he and his Harvard colleague Hilary Putnam developed the Quine–Putnam indispensability argument, an argument for the reality of mathematical entities.Colyvan, Mark"Indispensability Arguments in the Philosophy of Mathematics" The Stanford Encyclopedi ...
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Kurt Gödel
Kurt Friedrich Gödel ( , ; April 28, 1906 â€“ January 14, 1978) was a logician, mathematician, and philosopher. Considered along with Aristotle and Gottlob Frege to be one of the most significant logicians in history, Gödel had an immense effect upon scientific and philosophical thinking in the 20th century, a time when others such as Bertrand Russell,For instance, in their "Principia Mathematica' (''Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' edition). Alfred North Whitehead, and David Hilbert were using logic and set theory to investigate the foundations of mathematics, building on earlier work by the likes of Richard Dedekind, Georg Cantor and Frege. Gödel published his first incompleteness theorem in 1931 when he was 25 years old, one year after finishing his doctorate at the University of Vienna. The first incompleteness theorem states that for any ω-consistent recursive axiomatic system powerful enough to describe the arithmetic of the natural numbers (for example P ...
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Gauss Lectureship
The Gauss Lectureship (''Gauß-Vorlesung'') is an annually awarded mathematical distinction, named in honor of Carl Friedrich Gauss. It was established in 2001 by the German Mathematical Society with a series of lectures for a broad audience. Each Gauss Lecture is paired with another presentation on the history of mathematics The history of mathematics deals with the origin of discoveries in mathematics and the mathematical methods and notation of the past. Before the modern age and the worldwide spread of knowledge, written examples of new mathematical developments .... Gauss Lecturers See also * List of mathematics awards References External links Gauss Lectureship Archive of the Gauss Lectureship{{Webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150913071416/http://dmv.mathematik.de/index.php/aktivitaeten/gauss-vorlesung/archiv-der-gauss-vorlesungen , date=2015-09-13 German science and technology awards Mathematics awards Carl Friedrich Gauss Lecture series ...
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German Mathematical Society
The German Mathematical Society (german: Deutsche Mathematiker-Vereinigung, DMV) is the main professional society of German mathematicians and represents German mathematics within the European Mathematical Society (EMS) and the International Mathematical Union (IMU). It was founded in 1890 in Bremen with the set theorist Georg Cantor as first president. Founding members included Georg Cantor, Felix Klein, Walther von Dyck, David Hilbert, Hermann Minkowski, Carl Runge, Rudolf Sturm, Hermann Schubert, and Heinrich Weber. The current president of the DMV is Ilka Agricola (2021–2022). Activities In honour of its founding president, Georg Cantor, the society awards the Cantor Medal. The DMV publishes two scientific journals, the ''Jahresbericht der DMV'' and ''Documenta Mathematica''. It also publishes a quarterly magazine for its membership the ''Mitteilungen der DMV''. The annual meeting of the DMV is called the ''Jahrestagung''; the DMV traditionally meets every four y ...
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