J. Lambek – författare

This is intended as a textbook on the history, philosophy and foundations of mathematics, primarily for students specializing in mathematics, but we also wish to welcome interested students from the sciences, humanities and education. We have attempted to give approximately equal treatment to the three subjects: history, philosophy and mathematics. History We must emphasize that this is not a scholarly account of the history of mathematics, but rather an attempt to teach some good mathematics in a historical context. Since neither of the authors is a professional historian, we have made liberal use of secondary sources. We have tried to give ref­ cited facts and opinions. However, considering that this text erences for developed by repeated revisions from lecture notes of two courses given by one of us over a 25 year period, some attributions may have been lost. We could not resist retelling some amusing anecdotes, even when we suspect that they have no proven historical basis. As to the mathematicians listed in our account, we admit to being colour and gender blind; we have not attempted a balanced distribution of the mathematicians listed to meet today's standards of political correctness. Philosophy Both authors having wide philosophical interests, this text contains perhaps more philosophical asides than other books on the history of mathematics. For example, we discuss the relevance to mathematics of the pre-Socratic philosophers and of Plato, Aristotle, Leibniz and Russell. We also have vi Preface presented some original insights.

In this book the authors reconcile two different viewpoints of the foundations of mathematics, namely mathematical logic and category theory. In Part I, they show that typed lambda-calculi, a formulation of higher order logic, and cartesian closed categories are essentially the same. In Part II, it is demonstrated that another formulation of higher order logic (intuitionistic type theories) is closely related to topos theory. Part III is devoted to recursive functions. Numerous applications of the close relationship between traditional logic and the algebraic language of category theory are given. The authors have included an introduction to category theory and develop the necessary logic as required, making the book essentially self-contained. Detailed historical references are provided throughout, and each section concludes with a set of exercises. Thus it is well-suited for graduate courses and research in mathematics and logic. Researchers in theoretical computer science, artificial intelligence and mathematical linguistics will also find this an accessible introduction to a subject of increasing application to these disciplines.

This is intended as a textbook on the history, philosophy and foundations of mathematics, primarily for students specializing in mathematics, but we also wish to welcome interested students from the sciences, humanities and education. We have attempted to give approximately equal treatment to the three subjects: history, philosophy and mathematics. History We must emphasize that this is not a scholarly account of the history of mathematics, but rather an attempt to teach some good mathematics in a historical context. Since neither of the authors is a professional historian, we have made liberal use of secondary sources. We have tried to give ref­ cited facts and opinions. However, considering that this text erences for developed by repeated revisions from lecture notes of two courses given by one of us over a 25 year period, some attributions may have been lost. We could not resist retelling some amusing anecdotes, even when we suspect that they have no proven historical basis. As to the mathematicians listed in our account, we admit to being colour and gender blind; we have not attempted a balanced distribution of the mathematicians listed to meet today''s standards of political correctness. Philosophy Both authors having wide philosophical interests, this text contains perhaps more philosophical asides than other books on the history of mathematics. For example, we discuss the relevance to mathematics of the pre-Socratic philosophers and of Plato, Aristotle, Leibniz and Russell. We also have vi Preface presented some original insights.