Paul Benacerraf

Paul Benacerraf ( born 1931 ) is an American philosopher. Its area of ​​effect is especially mathematics theory, more prospective areas are logic, epistemology, metaphysics and philosophy of language.

Life and work

Benacerraf Sephardic parents came from Morocco, he grew up in Paris. His brother is the winner of the Nobel prize Baruj Benacerraf physicians. Benacerraf is professor emeritus of philosophy at Princeton University.

He is best known perhaps for his article What Numbers Could Not Be ( 1965) and for his co-editor of Philosophy of Mathematics: Selected Readings. He also made ​​himself a strong critic of Platonism a name.

Writings

• Logicism, Some Considerations Princeton, Dissertation, University Microfilms 1960.
• What Numbers Could Not Be, The Philosophical Review 74, 1965, pp. 47-73.
• God, the Devil, and Gödel, The Monist 51, ​​1967. Pp. 9-33.
• Mathematical Truth, The Journal of Philosophy 70, 1973, p 661-679.
• Frege: The Last Logicist, The Foundations of Analytic Philosophy, Midwest Studies in Philosophy 6, 1981, p 17-35.
• Skolem and the Skeptic, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volume 56, 1985, p 85-115.
• Paul Benacerraf / Hilary Putnam (eds.): Philosophy of Mathematics: Selected Readings. Cambridge University Press: New York, 2nd Aufl 1983.