Technical Methods In Philosophy

Aimed at readers who need specialized formal tools for serious philosophical study, this volume builds that toolkit from the ground up. It opens with set theory, then moves on to relations, functions, and the foundations of arithmetic.

With those tools in hand, the author turns to the metatheory of the predicate calculus, examining how the system is structured and what can be proven about it. Along the way the book covers recursive definitions, Gödel's theorem, and the completeness of the predicate calculus.

Throughout, the emphasis falls on the architecture of formal systems and the theoretical framework that stands behind them.