Principia Mathematica, Whitehead, First Edition (9 results)

410pp. 8vo Trade paperback, rustica, broche 1st paperback edition. Contains only 1st 56 sections Light cover soil: VG.

kart. Condition: Gut. 1. Aufl. 167 S. ; 18 cm Erste Auflage, Papier lichtbedingt nachgedunkelt. ISBN 9783518281932 Sprache: Deutsch Gewicht in Gramm: 119.

VIII, 167 S., 1 Bl. Orig.-Kartoniert. Erste deutsche Ausgabe. - Gutes Exemplar.

GERMAN FIRST EDITION. 15x22.5 cm. VIII+167 pages. Softcover. Cover slightly stained. Cover edges slightly chafed. Spine is stained. Top and bottom of spine are chafed - cover slightly detached from spine on bottom of spine. Pencil writing on several pages. Else in good condition. The book is in : German.

VIII, 167 SS., 1 Bl. Okart. Erste deutsche Ausgabe. - Namensstempel a.d. Vor- und Titelblatt, Rücken leiocht bestoßen.

First edition of volume one and second editions of volumes two and three, in the rare dust jackets of Russell and Whitehead's monumental work. Octavo, three volumes, original cloth. Rare and desirable. Probably named after Isaac Newton's great work, "Principia Mathematica was Whitehead and Russell s detailed account of their logicist thesis that mathematics could be derived solely from logical concepts and by logical methods [it] has had an influence, direct and indirect, of near Newtonian proportions upon the spheres of its chief influence: mathematical logic, set theory, the foundations of mathematics, linguistic analysis and analytical philosophy" (Grattan-Guinness, p. 89). "Whether they know it or not, all modern logicians are the heirs of Whitehead and Russell" (Palgrave, p. 20). In very good to near fine condition with volumes two and three in the rare original dust jackets, endpapers renewed to volume one.

First editions, an exceptionally rare presentation copy, inscribed by Whitehead on the front free endpapers of volumes I and II to his only sister, Shirley Maria Whitehead (1858-1943), "S.M.W. from A.N.W.", and dated "March 13 / 12" in the second volume (preceding publication in April). In 1891 Shirley Maria married Alfred's former Sherborne School mathematics master, the Rev. John Blanch (1842-1907), whom Alfred held in high esteem - in 1898 he presented him with an inscribed copy of his first book, Treatise on Universal Algebra with Applications. The marriage however is recorded as unhappy by Victor Lowe in his biography of Whitehead, and Blanch died by suicide in 1907, before the publication of the Principia Mathematica. Shirley continued to reside in Cambridge, where both Russell and Whitehead studied, and where they collaborated in writing the Principia. To our knowledge the only other presentation copy to have appeared on the market was that in the collection of Haskell F. Norman, which was presented to the mathematical philosopher Philip Jourdain. That copy, however, had only presentation slips from the publisher, rather than being inscribed directly by an author as here - it garnered $129,000 in the Norman sale in 1998. The authors are known to have sent complimentary copies to the library of Trinity College, Cambridge, of which they both were or had been Fellows, to R. G. Hawtrey, who checked over some of the text while it was in preparation, to G. G. Berry, a clerk at the Bodleian Library with remarkable abilities in mathematical logic, and to Jourdain. The University Press sent copies to G. Peano, G. Frege, L. Couturat, J. Royce, W. E. Johnson (who had examined the manuscript for the Press), E. W. Hobson, and A. R. Forsyth. We cannot trace the location of any of these copies, other than Jourdain's and the copy remaining in Trinity College, Cambridge. In the Principia, Whitehead and Russell attempted to construct "the whole body of mathematical doctrine by logical deduction from the basis of a small number of primitive ideas and a small number of primitive principles of logical inference" (DSB, XII, p. 14). This 'logicist' position holds that mathematics is as a branch of logic, and thus "that a separate philosophy of mathematics does not exist, a view contradicting the Kantian doctrine that mathematical proofs depend on a priori forms of intuition. the three colossal volumes of Principia Mathematica. formed the greatest single contribution to symbolic logic for the time" (ODNB). Russell wrote to Helen Flexner that he doubted anyone would read it all the way through, and it is renowned for its extraordinary complexity and impenetrability, yet nonetheless, it has been correctly called "one of the most impressive intellectual monuments of the twentieth century" (ibid.). A fourth volume, dealing with the applications to geometry, was planned but never finished, as both men turned their attention away from mathematics and towards philosophy. Aside from the desirable presentation, this is one of only 500 possible complete sets - the first volume was printed in 750 copies, but the publishers reduced the printings of volumes II and III to 500 copies each. John Slater, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Toronto and editor of The Collected Papers of Bertrand Russell, suggests that there are probably fewer than 50 sets surviving in private hands. Blackwell & Ruja A9.1a; Church, Bibliography of Symbolic Logic, 194.1-3 (one of a handful of works marked by Church as being "of especial interest or importance"); Martin 101.01-03. Victor Lowe, Alfred North Whitehead: The Man and His Work, vol. I, 2020. 3 vols, large octavo. Original dark blue cloth, spines lettered in gilt and ruled in blind, rules continuing to covers in blind; joints and extremities neatly restored. Housed in custom morocco-entry blue cloth slipcase. Bookplate of South-west Essex Technical College and School of Art Library to front pastedowns of vol. I and II (active 1938-1970, absorbed into the North East London Polytechnic), their stamp to vol. I and II titles, every hundredth page from p. 5 on, and rear free endpapers and fore edges (vol. III without such markings and likely sometime supplied). Vol. I: endpapers toned with slight abrasion to front pastedown, upper outer corner a little bumped, two short closed tears at foot of first text leaf. Vol. II: restoration at upper outer corner of front free endpaper with loss to the "W" in the inscription. Vol. III with front free endpapers replaced, bump to lower outer corner. All three vols a little rubbed and sometime polished, vol. III a little more visibly. Contents clean aside from library markings. A very good set.

First Edition. First edition. Three volumes. ix, [5], 666; xxxiv, 772; x, 491 pp. Bound in publisher's navy cloth, spines lettered in gilt; housed in custom folding cloth box. Good condition overall. Unsophisticated copies, pleasantly not-ex-library (very uncommon in commerce thus), but certainly fragile. Rubbing to lettering, staining and edge wear to cloth, boards exposed at extremities; contents toned, brittle with age, and sometimes faintly foxed. Hinges of Vol. I starting; rear board split at head but holding; a few pages detached; about a fifth of pp.1-2 torn off but retained; circular tear to last several leaves of the volume. Vol. II has occasional marginal chipping including to lower corners of about 160 pages, not affecting text; tiny wormholes to inner margins of prelims; hinges worn with a few pages detached. Vol. III cloth chipped along edges; bump to bottom inner corner of textblock. A truly rare first edition of one of the major intellectual landmarks of the 20th century. It marked a milestone in the evolution of mathematical logic, upon which the development of computers and the information sciences would depend, by attempting to construct "the whole body of mathematical doctrine by logical deduction from the basis of a small number of primitive ideas and a small number of primitive principles of logical inference" (DSB, XII, p. 14). In the discipline of philosophy this work represents a culmination of centuries of empiricist and rationalist discourse, an ambitious masterwork.

First edition. 'THE GREATEST SINGLE CONTRIBUTION TO LOGIC SINCE ARISTOTLE' . First edition of this monumental work, one of the great rarities of modern science and mathematics, "the greatest single contribution to logic that has appeared in the two thousand years since Aristotle" (DNB). "In this monumental study of logic and set theory, Russell and Whitehead took up the task of proving the logical basis of all mathematics by deducing the whole body of mathematical doctrine from a small number of primitive ideas and principles of logical inference. To do so, Russell and Whitehead devised a complex but precise system of symbols that enabled them to sidestep the ambiguities of ordinary language, and to give an exposition of sentential logic that has hardly been improved upon since" (Norman). Probably named after Isaac Newton's great work, Principia Mathematica "has had an influence, direct and indirect, of near Newtonian proportions upon the spheres of its chief influence: mathematical logic, set theory, the foundations of mathematics, linguistic analysis and analytical philosophy" (Grattan-Guinness (1975), p. 89). "It also served as a major impetus for research in the foundations of mathematics throughout the twentieth century. Along with Aristotle's Organon and Gottlob Frege's Grundgesetze der Arithmetik, it remains one of the most influential books on logic ever written" (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). "Whether they know it or not, all modern logicians are the heirs of Whitehead and Russell" (Palgrave, p. 20). Complete sets of the first edition are very rare. Vol. I was printed in an edition of 750 copies and, due to disappointing sales, the publishers reduced the print run of Vols. II and III to 500 copies each, so that only 500 complete sets in first edition are possible. John Slater, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Toronto and editor of The Collected Papers of Bertrand Russell, suggests that there are probably fewer than 50 sets surviving in private hands. "Gottlob Frege (1848-1925) had attempted to demonstrate logicism about arithmetic (though not geometry) in the period from 1879, when his first book, Begriffsschrift, was published, to 1903, when the second volume of his Grundgesetze der Arithmetik appeared. However, in 1902, as that second volume was in press, Russell (1872-1970) had written to him informing him of the contradiction that he had discovered in Frege's system" (Palgrave, p. viii). This was 'Russell's paradox', that the set of all sets that are not members of themselves is a member of itself if and only if it is not a member of itself. "Frege had attempted to respond to the contradiction in a hastily written appendix, but he soon realized that his response was inadequate and abandoned his logicist project. It was left to Russell to find a solution to the paradox and to reconstruct the logicist program accordingly. The final result was Russell's ramified theory of types and Principia Mathematica itself, but this theory and the logicist reconstruction in which it is embedded took a decade to develop" (ibid.). "Principia Mathematica had its origins in Russell's discovery of the work of [Giuseppe] Peano (1858-1932) at the International Congress of Philosophy held in Paris in the summer of 1900, which Peano and his supporters attended in force. To that time Russell had been working for several years attempting to develop a satisfactory philosophy of mathematics. Despite some philosophical successes a satisfactory outcome had always eluded him. At the conference, however, he very quickly realized that the Peano school had a set of techniques of which he could make use, and on his return from the conference he immediately set about applying them. As a result, he quickly rewrote The Principles of Mathematics, which he had started in 1899, finishing the new version by the end of the year. It was published, after some delay and substantial revisions of Part I, in 1903, billed as the first of two volumes. It was intended as a philosophical introduction to, and defence of, the logicist program that all mathematical concepts could be defined in terms of logic and that all mathematical theorems could be derived from purely logical axioms. It was to be followed by a second volume, done in Peano's notation, in which the logicist program would actually be carried out by providing the requisite definitions and proofs. At about the same time that Russell was finishing The Principles of Mathematics, he began the collaboration with his former teacher, Whitehead (1861-1947), that produced, many years later, Principia Mathematica. "Whitehead in 1898 had published A Treatise on Universal Algebra, another first volume, in which a variety of symbolic systems were interpreted on a general, abstract conception of space. Again much detailed formal work was held over for the second volume. By September 1902 the two second volumes had merged, both authors having decided to unite in producing a joint second volume to each of their projects. This in turn grew until it constituted the three volumes of Principia Mathematica. The reason for the long delay in completing [Principia Mathematica] was the difficulty in dealing with a paradox that Russell had discovered around May 1901 in the set-theoretic basis of the logicist system. The natural initial supposition of that system was that a class would correspond to each propositional function of the system, intuitively the class of terms which satisfied that propositional function. This being the case, there would be a class corresponding to the propositional function 'x is not a member of itself', and this class would be a member of itself if and only if it was not a member of itself. The problem of restricting the underlying logic so that this result could not arise while leaving it strong enough to support the mathematical superstructure that Russell and Whitehead wished to build on it absorbed many years of intense labour" (ibid.,