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Frederic Brenton Fitch (September 9, 1908 – September 18, 1987) was an American
logician Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the study of deductively valid inferences or logical truths. It examines how conclusions follow from premises based on the structure of arg ...
, a
Sterling Professor Sterling Professor, the highest academic rank at Yale University, is awarded to a Academic tenure in North America, tenured faculty member considered the best in their field. It is akin to the rank of distinguished professor at other universities. ...
at
Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Stat ...
.


Education and career

At Yale, Fitch earned his B.A in 1931 and his Ph.D. from Yale in 1934 under the supervision of F. S. C. Northrop. From 1934 to 1937 Fitch was a postdoc at the
University of Virginia The University of Virginia (UVA) is a Public university#United States, public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia, United States. It was founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson and contains his The Lawn, Academical Village, a World H ...
. In 1937 he returned to Yale, where he taught until his retirement in 1977. His doctoral students include
Alan Ross Anderson Alan Ross Anderson (1925–1973) was an American logician and professor of philosophy at Yale University and the University of Pittsburgh. A frequent collaborator with Nuel Belnap, Anderson was instrumental in the development of relevance ...
, Ruth Barcan Marcus, and
William W. Tait William Walker Tait (January 22, 1929 – March 15, 2024) was an American philosopher. He was emeritus professor of philosophy at the University of Chicago, where he served as a faculty member from 1972 to 1996, and as department chair from 1981 ...
.


Work

Fitch was the
inventor An invention is a unique or novel device, method, composition, idea, or process. An invention may be an improvement upon a machine, product, or process for increasing efficiency or lowering cost. It may also be an entirely new concept. If an ...
of the Fitch-style calculus for arranging formal logical proofs as diagrams. In his 1963 published paper "A Logical Analysis of Some Value Concepts" he proves "Theorem 5" (originally by
Alonzo Church Alonzo Church (June 14, 1903 – August 11, 1995) was an American computer scientist, mathematician, logician, and philosopher who made major contributions to mathematical logic and the foundations of theoretical computer science. He is bes ...
), which later became famous in context of the knowability paradox. Fitch worked primarily in combinatory logic, authoring an undergraduate-level textbook on the subject (1974), but he also made significant contributions to intuitionism and modal logic. He was interested in the problem of the consistency, completeness, categoricity, and constructivity of logical theories, especially nonclassical logics, and contributed to the foundations of mathematics and to inductive probability. He dealt with the theory of references in "The Problem of the Morning Star and the Evening Star" (1949). He also contributed to the philosophy of how logic relates to language.


Works

* 1952: '' Symbolic Logic, An Introduction'', The Ronald Press Company * 1963
"A Logical Analysis of Some Value Concepts"
(This paper has over 400 citations.) * 1974: '' Elements of Combinatory Logic'',
Yale University Press Yale University Press is the university press of Yale University. It was founded in 1908 by George Parmly Day and Clarence Day, grandsons of Benjamin Day, and became a department of Yale University in 1961, but it remains financially and ope ...
* 1975: (with
Alan Ross Anderson Alan Ross Anderson (1925–1973) was an American logician and professor of philosophy at Yale University and the University of Pittsburgh. A frequent collaborator with Nuel Belnap, Anderson was instrumental in the development of relevance ...
, Ruth Barcan Marcus, and Richard Milton Martin):


See also

* Fitch notation


References


External links


Bibliography of papers by Frederic Fitch on PhilPapers

Frederic Brenton Fitch Papers.
Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library. {{DEFAULTSORT:Fitch, Frederic Brenton 1908 births 1987 deaths American logicians Yale Sterling Professors 20th-century American mathematicians Yale University alumni