CFP: Philosophical roots of mathematical logic

Nineteenth-century logic is known to have relied heavily on the background of post-Kantian philosophy to address issues such as the investigation of the conditions of thought, the characterization of abstract objects, the delimitation of objective from subjective knowledge,  the systematic of scientific methodologies. The philosophical tradition of logic overlapped with the development of modern mathematical logic from the first versions of the algebra of logic in the mid nineteenth-century until inquiries into the logical foundations of mathematics from the early 1930s. This very fact strongly suggests that there might have been significant intersections between what appear now as separate disciplines, and raises the question of whether philosophical roots can be traced in the development of mathematical logic. Several studies have shed light on the philosophical background of key figures in the history of modern logic, including Richard Dedekind, Gottlob Frege, Charles Sanders Peirce. And it has been shown that even some of the main proponents of the modern conception, such as Russell and Carnap, engaged with philosophical conceptions of logic in the wake of the nineteenth-century tradition at least for part of their works. However, much remains to be investigated.

The aim of this conference is to foster further exchanges between those who are doing scholarly research on the history of logic in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries from various perspectives, including those who focus on the philosophical tradition of the nineteenth century and its developments in neo-Kantianism and phenomenology, historians of logic and of related mathematical disciplines, as well as philosophers who are interested in the epistemological issues surrounding modern mathematical logic.

We welcome abstract proposals (max 500 words) prepared for blind review. Possible topics include:

• Syllogistic in mathematical logic, including the algebra of logic tradition (De Morgan, Boole) and the Peano School
• Leibnizian themes in nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century logic
• The logical contributions of post-Kantian philosophers, such as Johann Friedrich Herbart,  Jakob Friedrich Fries, Adolf Friedrich Trendelenburg
• The logics and influences of the philosophical tradition, in particular Hermann Lotze and Bernard Bolzano 
• Traditional part-whole theories before modern mereology
• The philosophical views of nineteenth-century mathematicians, including Hermann Grassmann, Bernhard Riemann, Richard Dedekind
• The philosophical background of logicism, in particular Frege’s and Russell’s
• Logic as conceptual analysis and as investigation of the inference rules of formalized systems
• Early twentieth-century philosophies of logic in neo-Kantianism, Husserlian phenomenology and logical positivism

Invited speakers: 

Arianna Betti, Guido Bonino, Stefania Centrone, Laura Crosilla, Luca Guidetti, Leila Haaparanta, Mirja Hartimo, Jeremy Heis, An­nika Kanckos, Nikolay Milkov, Pierluigi Minari, Erich Reck, Georg Schiemer, Wilfried Sieg, Göran Sundholm

Important dates:

Deadline: 28 February 2022

Notification of acceptance: 10 March 2022

Conference: 4-6 April 2022

Please send your submissions to: [email protected]

Venue and format:

The conference will take place at the University of Turin, Italy. It is planned as a hybrid event with face-to-face sessions and one online session. When submitting an abstract proposal, please specify in the accompanying email whether you are currently planning to attend in person or online.

Please address any questions about the CFA or the conference to one of the organizers: Francesca Biagioli ([email protected]), Paola Cantù ([email protected]), Paolo Maffezioli ([email protected])