Table Of ContentKurt Godel
COLLECTED WORKS
Volume IV
Kurt Godel
C O L L E C T ED W O R KS
Volume IV
Correspondence A-G
EDITED BY
Solomon Feferman
John W. Dawson, Jr.
(Editors-in-chief)
Warren Goldfarb
Charles Parsons
Wilfried Sieg
Prepared under the auspices of the
Association for Symbolic Logic
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© Solomon Feferman, John W. Dawson, Jr, Warren Goldfarb,
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First published 2003
First published in paperback 2014
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Preface
This is the fourth volume of a comprehensive edition of the works of
Kurt Godel. Volumes I and II comprised all of his publications, ranging
from 1929 to 1936 and from 1937 to 1974, respectively. Volume III con
sisted of a selection of unpublished papers and texts for individual lectures
found in Godel's Nachlafi, together with a survey of the Nachlafl. The
present volume and its successor are primarily devoted to a selection of
Godel's scientific correspondence and the calendars thereto. In all cases
our criterion for inclusion was that letters should either possess intrinsic
scientific, philosophical or historical interest or should illuminate Godel's
thoughts or his personal relationships with others. Volume V, being pub
lished simultaneously with this one, also contains a full inventory of his
Nachlafi.
There were several sources for the correspondence from which the selec
tion in this and the following volume were made. The primary one was,
of course, Godel's Nachlafi; we have also solicited and obtained from other
archives and from individuals (or their estates) copies of correspondence
that filled gaps therein. The section on Permissions, below, contains a
full list of all those sources, to whom we are, of course, greatly indebted.
The total number of items of personal and scientific correspondence in the
Godel Nachlafi alone is around 3500, distributed over 219 folders.
In the main body of these two volumes we have selected correspondence
with 50 individuals from the indicated sources. The most prominent corre
spondents among these are Paul Bernays, William Boone, Rudolf Carnap,
Paul Cohen, Burton Dreben, Jacques Herbrand, Arend Heyting, Karl Men-
ger, Ernest Nagel, Emil Post, Abraham Robinson, Alfred Tarski, Stanislaw
Ulam, John von Neumann, Hao Wang and Ernst Zermelo. In addition,
the reader will find in Appendix A to volume V several letters written on
behalf of Godel to others by Felix Kaufmann, Dana Scott and Hao Wang.
There are two major correspondents of Godel who declined to allow us to
publish their side of the exchanges, namely Paul Cohen and Georg Kreisel.
In the latter case, except for one item from Godel which is not included
here, the correspondence was entirely a one-way street, but it is revealing
of many topics of discussion of mutual interest, and thus we regret that it
could not be represented. In the case of Cohen, as the reader will see, the
nature of the correspondence could be fully reconstructed from the items
found in Godel's Nachlafi.
As in the first three volumes of this edition all the original material was
written in German (sometimes in the Gabelsberger shorthand) or English,
sometimes in both; those items originally in German are accompanied by
facing translations. Credit for the work on the translations is contained in
the Information for the reader below. Also as in the first three volumes, a
v
VI Preface
significant component is played by introductory notes and to a greater ex
tent than previously these notes have been written by the editors. We are
additionally indebted in this respect to Michael Beeson, Jens Erik Fenstad,
Akihiro Kanamori, 0ystein Linnebo, Moshe Machover and David Mala-
ment. The purpose of the notes themselves is to provide historical context
to the correspondence, explain the contents to a greater or lesser extent,
and, where relevant, discuss later developments or provide a critical analy
sis. Because of these requirements, several of the introductory notes turned
out to be quite extensive; in those cases the reader is advised to consult
them in tandem with the correspondence itself.
Once more our endeavor has been to make the full body of Godel's work
and thought as accessible and useful to as wide an audience as possible,
without compromising the requirements of historical and scientific accu
racy. As with the preceding volumes, this one is expected to be of interest
and value to professionals and students in the areas of logic, mathematics,
computer science, philosophy and even physics, as well as to many non-
specialized readers with a broad scientific background. Naturally, even
with the assistance of the introductory notes, not all of the material to
be found here can be made equally accessible to such a variety of readers;
nonetheless, the general reader should be able to gain some appreciation
for what is at issue in the various exchanges.
Work on this volume and its successor was supported in its entirety by
a grant from the Sloan Foundation, whose generosity and flexibility were
indispensable to their successful completion. We are also grateful to the
Department of Philosophy at Harvard University for its generous assistance
with some last-minute expenses. In addition, by helpful arrangement with
William Joyce and Donald C. Skemer of the Princeton University library
system, and with Marcia Tucker of the library of the Institute for Advanced
Study, the Foundation completely underwrote the preservation microfilm
ing of Godel's Nachlafl, in an effort to prevent further deterioration. That
lengthy and delicate task was actually carried out by Preservation Re
sources Company of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. As with the Nachlafi itself,
one copy of the microfilms is housed at the Rare Books and Manuscripts
Division of Firestone Library at Princeton University; the inventory of
Godel's Nachlafi to be found in volume V includes the finding aid for that.
Abridged copies, excluding correspondence, are distributed by IDC Pub
lishers, Inc., 350 Fifth Avenue, Suite 1801, New York, NY 10118 (web
address: http://www.idc.nl).
The editorial board for these volumes consists of the undersigned as
editors-in-chief, together with Warren Goldfarb, Charles Parsons and Wil-
fried Sieg. We are especially thankful to Cheryl Dawson, who performed
extraordinarily sustained, careful and thorough service as managing editor
over a time period that was far longer than any of us anticipated. Under her
supervision, the volumes themselves were set in camera-ready copy using
Preface vii
the TgX system, and later ^4vi<S-TpX, in a form that had been developed
/ J
for the previous volumes by Yasuko Kitajima; after significant initial TgX
work by Kitajima, most of the remaining Tf^X work in the present volumes
was carried out (promptly and with diligence—often under pressure) by
Bruce S. Babcock, with the balance done by Cheryl Dawson. We were also
ably assisted by Montgomery Link, who joined the effort late in the pro
cess to complete the work of researching reference citations; his work under
pressure is much appreciated.
From the outset with volume I of these Works, the project to produce the
volumes has been sponsored by the Association for Symbolic Logic, and the
grants under which they were carried out were ably administered for the
Association at the hands of its Secretary-Treasurers, C. Ward Henson and,
since the beginning of the new millennium, Charles Steinhorn. Clerical
support was provided by the Department of Mathematics of Penn State
York, with special assistance, especially for the extensive photo-copying
required, by Carole V. Wagner. Our editor Elizabeth Johnston at Oxford
University Press (in Oxford, England) has been both encouraging and very
patient.
We mourn the loss of our dear friend, Stefan Bauer-Mengelberg, who
died of a heart attack on 19 October 1996, at the age of 69. Noted for
his unusual multi-faceted career as mathematician, symphony conductor
and lawyer, Stefan had both given us legal advice and provided us with
considerable assistance on the translations in the previous volumes. Fol
lowing the publication of volume III of these Works in 1995, he was much
looking forward to further work with us to help bring the entire project to
completion.
Solomon Feferman and John W. Dawson, Jr.
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Information for the reader
Copy texts. A basic tenet of documentary editing is that published texts
of letters should represent what recipients actually saw. In particular, re
cipients' copies of letters should be used as copy texts whenever they are
available, and readers should be made aware of authorial errors and emen
dations. In the correspondence reproduced herein both of those precepts
have been followed. In cases where the recipient's copy of a letter was
unobtainable but the author's retained copy has been preserved, we have
used the latter as our copy text. Details concerning the copy texts and
their sources are provided in the calendar for each correspondent. Errors
and emendations are indicated by a variety of devices, chosen with the
aim of facilitating proofreading and of distracting as little as possible from
readability. They are described in detail below.
Arrangement of letters. Letters are grouped alphabetically according to
the names of Godel's correspondents, and within each group by date.
Dating of letters. The date and author's return address, when included
as part of a letter, are placed flush right above the salutation and text,
even if not so positioned in the original. Undated letters are identified as
such and have been placed in sequence on the basis of annotations on the
copy texts, postmarks on retained envelopes or internal references to other
correspondence or events of known date. Conjectural dates are enclosed in
double square brackets ([ ]).
Editorial apparatus. Original pagination of letters, except for the first
page of each, is indicated by small numbers in the outer margins of these
pages. The symbol | in the text indicates the location of page breaks.
Authorial errors and emendations are indicated as follows:
1. Letters or symbols that should have been deleted are backslashed
0f$4 f$f)- Spaces that should be deleted are indicated by a ligature
symbol (^) below the space in question.
2. Letters or symbols that should be replaced by other letters or sym
bols (including capitalization errors) are backslashed, and the symbols
that should replace them are printed in small type in the inner mar
gin of the page on the corresponding line. A "square cup" symbol (u)
placed in the margin indicates that a symbol is to be replaced by a
blank space.
3. Letters or symbols inserted by the editors are enclosed within double
square brackets (| ]). Authorial insertions are enclosed within single
pointed brackets (( )). (We have not distinguished among insertions
made above, below, or on the line.) A caret below the line, together
with the "square cup" symbol in the margin, indicates a place where
a space should be inserted.
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