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HEINRICH BEHMANN’S 1921 LECTURE ON THE DECISION PROBLEM AND THE ALGEBRA OF LOGIC

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 June 2015

PAOLO MANCOSU  and
RICHARD ZACH
PAOLO MANCOSU
Affiliation:
DEPARTMENT OF PHILOSOPHY 314 MOSES HALL #2390 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA BERKELEY, CA 94720–2390, USAE-mail: mancosu@socrates.berkeley.eduURL: http://philosophy.berkeley.edu/mancosu/
RICHARD ZACH
Affiliation:
DEPARTMENT OF PHILOSOPHY UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY 2500 UNIVERSITY DRIVE N.W. CALGARY, AB T2N 1N4, CANADAE-mail: rzach@ucalgary.caURL: http://richardzach.org/
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Abstract

Heinrich Behmann (1891–1970) obtained his Habilitation under David Hilbert in Göttingen in 1921 with a thesis on the decision problem. In his thesis, he solved—independently of Löwenheim and Skolem’s earlier work—the decision problem for monadic second-order logic in a framework that combined elements of the algebra of logic and the newer axiomatic approach to logic then being developed in Göttingen. In a talk given in 1921, he outlined this solution, but also presented important programmatic remarks on the significance of the decision problem and of decision procedures more generally. The text of this talk as well as a partial English translation are included.

Keywords

01A6003-03Heinrich BehmannDavid Hilbertdecision problemdecision procedurealgebra of logic
Type
Articles
Information
Bulletin of Symbolic Logic , Volume 21 , Issue 2 , June 2015 , pp. 164 - 187
Copyright
Copyright © The Association for Symbolic Logic 2015 

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