Solomon Feferman (December 13, 1928July 26, 2016) was an American

philosopher Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...

and

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, mathematical structure, structure, space, Mathematica ...

who worked in

mathematical logic Mathematical logic is the study of Logic#Formal logic, formal logic within mathematics. Major subareas include model theory, proof theory, set theory, and recursion theory (also known as computability theory). Research in mathematical logic com ...

. In addition to his prolific technical work in

proof theory Proof theory is a major branchAccording to , proof theory is one of four domains mathematical logic, together with model theory, axiomatic set theory, and recursion theory. consists of four corresponding parts, with part D being about "Proof The ...

computability theory Computability theory, also known as recursion theory, is a branch of mathematical logic, computer science, and the theory of computation that originated in the 1930s with the study of computable functions and Turing degrees. The field has since ex ...

, and

set theory Set theory is the branch of mathematical logic that studies Set (mathematics), sets, which can be informally described as collections of objects. Although objects of any kind can be collected into a set, set theory – as a branch of mathema ...

, he was known for his contributions to the

history of logic The history of logic deals with the study of the development of the science of valid inference (logic). Formal logics developed in ancient times in Indian logic, India, Logic in China, China, and Greek philosophy, Greece. Greek methods, particula ...

(for instance, via biographical writings on figures such as

Kurt Gödel Kurt Friedrich Gödel ( ; ; April 28, 1906 – January 14, 1978) was a logician, mathematician, and philosopher. Considered along with Aristotle and Gottlob Frege to be one of the most significant logicians in history, Gödel profoundly ...

Alfred Tarski Alfred Tarski (; ; born Alfred Teitelbaum;School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of St Andrews ''School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of St Andrews''. January 14, 1901 – October 26, 1983) was a Polish-American logician ...

, and Jean van Heijenoort) and as a vocal proponent of the philosophy of mathematics known as predicativism, notably from an anti- platonist stance.

Life

Solomon Feferman was born in

The Bronx The Bronx ( ) is the northernmost of the five Boroughs of New York City, boroughs of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. It shares a land border with Westchester County, New York, West ...

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

to working-class parents who had immigrated to the United States after

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

and had met and married in New York. Neither parent had any advanced education. The family moved to Los Angeles, where Feferman graduated from high school at age 16. He received his B.S. from the California Institute of Technology in 1948, and in 1957 his Ph.D. in mathematics from the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...

, under

, after having been drafted and having served in the U.S. Army from 1953 to 1955. In 1956 he was appointed to the Departments of Mathematics and Philosophy at

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

, where he later became the Patrick Suppes Professor of Humanities and Sciences. While the majority of his career was spent at Stanford, he also spent time as a post-doctoral fellow at the

Institute for Advanced Study The Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) is an independent center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry located in Princeton, New Jersey. It has served as the academic home of internationally preeminent scholars, including Albert Ein ...

in Princeton, a visiting professor at MIT, and a visiting fellow at the

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...

( Wolfson College and All Souls College). Feferman died on 26 July 2016 at his home in Stanford, following an illness that lasted three months and a

stroke Stroke is a medical condition in which poor cerebral circulation, blood flow to a part of the brain causes cell death. There are two main types of stroke: brain ischemia, ischemic, due to lack of blood flow, and intracranial hemorrhage, hemor ...

. At his death, he had been a member of the

Mathematical Association of America The Mathematical Association of America (MAA) is a professional society that focuses on mathematics accessible at the undergraduate level. Members include university A university () is an educational institution, institution of tertiary edu ...

for 37 years.

Contributions

Feferman was editor-in-chief of the five-volume ''Collected Works'' of

, published by

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the publishing house of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world. Its first book was printed in Oxford in 1478, with the Press officially granted the legal right to print books ...

between 2001 and 2013. In 2004, together with his wife Anita Burdman Feferman, he published a biography of

: ''Alfred Tarski: Life and Logic''. Influenced by the writings of

Hermann Weyl Hermann Klaus Hugo Weyl (; ; 9 November 1885 – 8 December 1955) was a German mathematician, theoretical physicist, logician and philosopher. Although much of his working life was spent in Zürich, Switzerland, and then Princeton, New Jersey, ...

, he worked on predicative mathematics. In particular, he introduced the Feferman–Schütte ordinal as a measure of the strength of certain predicative systems.

Recognition

Feferman was awarded

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are Grant (money), grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, endowed by the late Simon Guggenheim, Simon and Olga Hirsh Guggenheim. These awards are bestowed upon indiv ...

s in 1972 and 1986 and the Rolf Schock Prize in logic and philosophy in 2003. He was invited to give the Gödel Lecture in 1997 and the Tarski Lectures in 2006. In 2012, he became a fellow of the

American Mathematical Society The American Mathematical Society (AMS) is an association of professional mathematicians dedicated to the interests of mathematical research and scholarship, and serves the national and international community through its publications, meetings, ...

.List of Fellows of the American Mathematical Society
retrieved December 2, 2012.

Publications

Papers

*Feferman, Solomon; Vaught, Robert L. (1959), "The first order properties of products of algebraic systems", ''Fund. Math.'' 47, 57–103. *Feferman, Solomon (1975), "A language and axioms for explicit mathematics", ''Algebra and logic'' (Fourteenth Summer Res. Inst., Austral. Math. Soc., Monash Univ., Clayton, 1974), pp. 87–139, Lecture Notes in Math., vol. 450, Berlin, Springer. *Feferman, Solomon (1979), "Constructive theories of functions and classes", ''Logic Colloquium '78 (Mons, 1978)'', pp. 159–224, Stud. Logic Foundations Math., 97, Amsterdam, New York, North-Holland. *Buchholz, Wilfried; Feferman, Solomon; Pohlers, Wolfram; Sieg, Wilfried (1981), "Iterated inductive definitions and subsystems of analysis: recent proof-theoretical studies", ''Lecture Notes in Mathematics'', 897, Berlin, New York, Springer-Verlag. *Feferman, Solomon; Hellman, Geoffrey (1995), "Predicative foundations of arithmetic", ''J. Philos. Logic'' 24 (1), 1–17. * Avigad, Jeremy; Feferman, Solomon (1998), "Gödel's functional (''Dialectica'') interpretation", ''Handbook of proof theory'', 337–405, Stud. Logic Found. Math., 137, Amsterdam, North-Holland.

Books

*Feferman, Solomon (1964) ''The Number Systems, Foundations of Algebra and Analysis'' Addison Wesley. Library of Congress Catalog No.63-12470 *Feferman, Solomon. (1998). ''In the Light of Logic''. Oxford University Press. , Logic and Computation in Philosophy series. *

References

External links

Solomon Feferman official website
(via

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American 501(c)(3) organization, non-profit organization founded in 1996 by Brewster Kahle that runs a digital library website, archive.org. It provides free access to collections of digitized media including web ...

) at

{{DEFAULTSORT:Feferman, Solomon 1928 births 21st-century American mathematicians American logicians Jewish American scientists Jewish philosophers Mathematical logicians Proof theorists American historians of mathematics University of California, Berkeley alumni Rolf Schock Prize laureates Stanford University Department of Philosophy faculty Stanford University Department of Mathematics faculty American philosophers of mathematics Fellows of the American Mathematical Society 2016 deaths 21st-century American Jews 20th-century American mathematicians