Robert Feys (19 December 1889 – 13 April 1961) was a

Belgian Belgian may refer to: * Something of, or related to, Belgium * Belgians, people from Belgium or of Belgian descent * Languages of Belgium, languages spoken in Belgium, such as Dutch, French, and German *Ancient Belgian language, an extinct languag ...

logician Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the science of deductively valid inferences or of logical truths. It is a formal science investigating how conclusions follow from premises ...

and

philosopher A philosopher is a person who practices or investigates philosophy. The term ''philosopher'' comes from the grc, φιλόσοφος, , translit=philosophos, meaning 'lover of wisdom'. The coining of the term has been attributed to the Greek th ...

, who worked at the University of Leuven (

Belgium Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...

).De Raeymaeker, Louis.
In memoriam le chanoine Robert Feys
" ''Revue Philosophique de Louvain'' 59.62 (1961): 371-374. Feys was born in

Mechelen Mechelen (; french: Malines ; traditional English name: MechlinMechelen has been known in English as ''Mechlin'', from where the adjective ''Mechlinian'' is derived. This name may still be used, especially in a traditional or historical contex ...

, and received his PhD in 1909 from the

Institute of Philosophy, University of Leuven The Institute of Philosophy (Dutch: Hoger Instituut voor Wijsbegeerte) is the faculty of philosophy at the KU Leuven in the Belgian city of Leuven. It was founded in 1968 when the ''Institut supérieur de Philosophie - Hoger Instituut voor Wijsbe ...

. In 1913 he was appointed Professor at the Université Saint-Louis, Brussels. But due to the War he enlisted in the Army. In 1919 he was appointed Professor at the Institute St. Gertrude in

Nivelles Nivelles (; nl, Nijvel, ; wa, Nivele; vls, Neyvel) is a city and municipality of Wallonia located in the Belgian province of Walloon Brabant. The Nivelles municipality includes the former municipalities of Baulers, Bornival, Thines, and Monstre ...

. In 1929 he returned to the Université Saint-Louis, Brussels, and in 1944 he was appointed Professor at the University of Leuven. In 1958 Feys and Haskell B. Curry devised the

type inference Type inference refers to the automatic detection of the type of an expression in a formal language. These include programming languages and mathematical type systems, but also natural languages in some branches of computer science and linguistics ...

algorithm for the

simply typed lambda calculus The simply typed lambda calculus (\lambda^\to), a form of type theory, is a typed interpretation of the lambda calculus with only one type constructor (\to) that builds function types. It is the canonical and simplest example of a typed lambda cal ...

(''Combinatory Logic'').

Selected publications

* Haskell B. Curry, Robert Feys, and William Craig. ''Combinatory Logic.'' Amsterdam, North-Holland Pub. Co., 1958–72. * Robert Feys, ''Dictionary of Symbols of Mathematical Logic.'' Amsterdam : North-Holland Pub. Co., 1973, 1969. French * Feys, Robert. "Les logiques nouvelles des modalités." ''Revue néo-scolastique de philosophie'' 40.56 (1937): 517–553. * Feys, Robert. "Les systèmes formalisés des modalités aristotéliciennes." ''Revue philosophique de Louvain'', 48.20 (1950): 478–509. * Feys, Robert. Étude géologique du Carbonifère briançonnais (Hautes-Alpes), 1957. Vol. 6. ''Éditions Technip'', 1963.

References

1889 births 1961 deaths Belgian logicians 20th-century Belgian philosophers Old University of Leuven faculty {{Belgium-philosopher-stub