Andrzej Mostowski and Foundational Studies

Book excerpt: Andrzej Mostowski was one of the leading 20th century logicians. His legacy is examined in this volume of papers devoted both to his extraordinary scientific heritage and to the memory of him as a great researcher, teacher, organizer of science and human. Professor Mostowski pioneered and mastered many areas of mathematical logic. His contributions spanned set theory, recursion theory, and model theory - the backbone of foundations of mathematics. He is best known of the Kleene-Mostowski and Davis-Mostowski hierarchies of properties of integers reflecting the complexity of their definitions, and of the very elegant concept of a generalized quantifier which inspired and keeps stimulating a stream of deep work on fundamental issues of logics, deduction and reasoning both in mathematics and in computer science, and also of the contributions and excellent lectures on undecidability, unprovability, consistency and independence of various statements in set theory and arithmetic following Gödel, Tarski and Cohen. The overall content of the volume is designed to cover the current main streams in the field. For many years after WWII, especially in the late sixties, till his untimely death in 1975, Warsaw - where he led the centre of foundational studies - was a place where many leading logicians visited, studied, and started their career. Their memories form an important part of this volume, attempting to bring back the extraordinary achievements and personality of Mostowski.