In the light of logic

by Solomon Feferman

In this collection of essays written over a period of twenty years, Solomon Feferman explains advanced results in modern logic and employs them to cast light on significant problems in the foundations of mathematics. Most troubling among these is the revolutionary way in which Georg Cantor elaborated the nature of the infinite, and in doing so helped transform the face of twentieth-century mathematics. Feferman details the development of Cantorian concepts and the foundational difficulties they engendered. He argues that the freedom provided by Cantorian set theory was purchased at a heavy philosophical price, namely adherence to a form of mathematical platonism that is difficult to support.