Thomas Edward Forster (born 12 April 1948) is a British
set theorist and philosopher. His work has focused on
Quine
Quine may refer to:
* Quine (computing), a program that produces its source code as output
* Quine's paradox, in logic
* Quine (surname), people with the surname
** Willard Van Orman Quine (1908–2000), American philosopher and logician
See al ...
's
New Foundations
In mathematical logic, New Foundations (NF) is a non-well-founded, finitely axiomatizable set theory conceived by Willard Van Orman Quine as a simplification of the theory of types of ''Principia Mathematica''.
Definition
The well-formed fo ...
, the theory of
well-quasi-orders and
better-quasi-orders, and various topics in philosophy.
Career
Forster completed a PhD at the
University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...
in 1977, with the dissertation ''NF'' on
New Foundations
In mathematical logic, New Foundations (NF) is a non-well-founded, finitely axiomatizable set theory conceived by Willard Van Orman Quine as a simplification of the theory of types of ''Principia Mathematica''.
Definition
The well-formed fo ...
, jointly supervised by
Adrian Mathias and Maurice Boffa.
Forster is an Affiliated Lecturer at
DPMMS, Cambridge, a
bye-fellow at
Queens' College, and holds honorary appointments for many other organisations worldwide, including the
Center for Philosophy of Science in Pittsburgh, the Centre National de Recherches de Logique in Belgium, and the Centre for Discrete Mathematics and Theoretical Computer Science at the
University of Auckland
The University of Auckland (; Māori: ''Waipapa Taumata Rau'') is a public research university based in Auckland, New Zealand. The institution was established in 1883 as a constituent college of the University of New Zealand. Initially loc ...
.
Amongst his undergraduate supervisees are
Phebe Mann,
Rosi Sexton,
Richard Taylor,
Rebecca Kitteridge,
Doug Gurr,
Sarah Flannery and
Ursula Martin.
Recognition
Forster was awarded the
J.T. Knight Prize as a PhD student at
Cambridge
Cambridge ( ) is a List of cities in the United Kingdom, city and non-metropolitan district in the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It is the county town of Cambridgeshire and is located on the River Cam, north of London. As of the 2021 Unit ...
in 1974.
His article "The Iterative Conception of Set" was recognised by the
Philosophers' Annual as one of the ten best philosophy articles of 2008.
Books
Forster's books include:
*''Quine's New Foundations: An Introduction'' (Cabay, 1983)
*''Set Theory with a Universal Set: Exploring an Untyped Universe'' (Clarendon, 1992; 2nd ed., 1996)
*''Reasoning about Theoretical Entities'' (World Scientific, 2003)
*''Logic, Induction and Sets'' (Cambridge University Press, 2003)
[Reviews of ''Logic, Induction and Sets'':
*Nick Lord, ''The Mathematical Gazette'', ,
*Yehuda Rav,
*K.Chandrasekhara Rao,
*Jan Woleński, ''Studia Logica'',
]
References
External links
Forster's websiteat DPMMS, Cambridge.
Cambridge mathematicians
British logicians
Set theorists
1948 births
Living people
{{UK-mathematician-stub