Customer Reviews

On Godel (Wadsworth Philosophers Series)

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I'm surprised that the previous review did not comment on the number of typographical errors; as far as I can see there is only one edition. The typos range from the merely distracting, to places where sentences become gibberish. Based on content, I'd give this at least 4 stars, but I found it too difficult to read. It's a nice complement to *Goedel's Proof* by Nagel and Newman--N & N give a much clearer exposition of Goedel's work, but Hintikka brings up a number of points I have not seen elsewhere (warning: many of the points raised can't be fully understood without referring to other works that treat them in more depth, unless you already have a strong background in mathematical foundations and logic).

This is a very interesting introduction to the thought and life of a great mathemetician and sometime philosopher. Hintikka has a clear writing style that helps with some difficult material and has special ability in making complicated math seem not so daunting. An excellent overview of the life of Godel.

John V. Karavitis Answer: They both leave you hungry for more after you're done with them.

Seriously, what is it with the editors at Wadsworth? The typos, grammatical errors, and broken English in this work on Godel, his life, philosophy, and infamous theorems on completeness and incompleteness, left me nonplussed. Granted, Jaakko Hintikka knows his stuff, and provides the reader with four pages of suggested readings/references at the end. However, the explanations of Godel's ideas are not clear, and, Heaven forbid you lack a degree in Mathematics, there are some parts of this where it gets a bit intimidating. John V. Karavitis Also, this work only hit 70 pages. Come on, people! A good editor would have either demanded a re-write or handed this assignment over to a more competent expert in the field. It's one thing to know something; the true test is, can you teach it to someone who knows absolutely nothing about your field? Jaakko Hintikka does his best, but, like the title line of this review says.... there was a bit of "incompleteness" in his work on Godel's Theorems of Incompleteness.

Oh well, three stars out of five. A good, quick review, some interesting new ideas, but don't let the math lingo scare you - this is only 70 pages long. It will be over soon enough. John V. Karavitis