Event Detail

Fri May 5, 2017
141 McCone Hall from 9 AM to 2 PM; 3 LeConte Hall from 2 PM to 5 PM
9 AM–5:30 PM
Logic at UC Berkeley

A two-day conference in mathematical logic and related areas organized by The Group in Logic and the Methodology of Science at UC Berkeley (logic.berkeley.edu). The conference is partly occasioned by the fact that the Group in Logic turns sixty this year.

In 1957, a group of faculty members, most of them from the departments of Mathematics and Philosophy, initiated a pioneering interdisciplinary graduate program leading to the degree of Ph.D. in Logic and the Methodology of Science. The Group has fostered interdisciplinary work in which logic has interacted with mathematics, philosophy, statistics, computer science, linguistics, physics and other disciplines.

While mathematical logic at UC Berkeley cannot be identified only with the Group in Logic, the Group has played a vital role in Berkeley’s worldwide prominence in mathematical logic and significantly contributed to making Berkeley a mecca since the fifties for people interested in mathematical logic and its applications. A full list of all those researchers in logic who taught at UC Berkeley, or studied at UC Berkeley, or visited Berkeley for shorter or longer periods would result in a who’s who of mathematical logic.  

While marking an important moment for logic at UC Berkeley, the conference will be forward looking rather than merely celebratory.  We have invited eight internationally prominent scholars to talk about the future of mathematical logic in their respective areas of specialization.   

The first day of the conference will have four invited speakers in the so-called “foundational” areas: set theory, model theory, recursion theory, and proof theory. The second day will have four invited speakers in areas where mathematical logic plays a prominent role, namely philosophy of logic and mathematics, formal semantics for natural languages, modal logic, and logic in computer science. The line up is given below.

For a map showing the conference lecture rooms, see the red arrows here.

May 5 (141 McCone Hall 9AM-2PM; 3 LeConte Hall 2-5PM)

introductory remarks (9-9:30am): Paolo Mancosu (UC Berkeley), “A brief history of the Group in Logic and the Methodology of Science

set theory (9:30-10:45am): John Steel (UC Berkeley), “Absolutely ordinal definable sets

model theory (11am-12:15pm): Ehud Hrushovski (Hebrew University, Oxford University), “Reflections on model theory and foundations

recursion theory (2:15-3:30pm): Denis Hirschfeldt (University of Chicago), “Computability Theory

proof theory (3:45-5:00pm): Michael Rathjen (Leeds University), “On relating type theories to (intuitionistic) set theories

May 6 (105 North Gate Hall)

philosophy of logic and mathematics (9:30-10:45am): Jeremy Avigad (Carnegie Mellon University), “Modularity of Mathematics

formal semantics for natural languages (11am-12:15pm): Barbara Partee (University of Massachusetts at Amherst), “The Intertwining Influences of Logic, Philosophy, and Linguistics in the Development of Formal Semantics and Pragmatics

modal logic (2:15-3:30pm): Johan van Benthem (University of Amsterdam, Stanford University, Tsinghua University), “Modal logic, on the cusp of philosophy and mathematics

logic in computer science (3:45-5:00pm) : Ronald Fagin (IBM Almaden Research Center), “Applying logic to practice in computer science