Principia mathematica

Cambridge: University Press, 1927. FIRST EDITION VOL. 1, SECOND EDITION OF VOLS. 2 AND 3. Original blue cloth, exteriors faintly rubbed and small tear to bottom edge of second volume, still an excellent set. Volume 1 from the library of Thomas Fiske (1865-1944), professor of mathematics at Columbia, and stamp in Volume 3 of René de la Vallée Vital of Brooklyn. First edition of Volume 1, second edition of Volumes 2 and 3. The greatest single contribution to logic to appear in the two thousand years since Aristotle was the result of the collaboration of two great philosophers and mathematical logicians, Whitehead (1861-1947) and Russell (1872-1970). Inspired by Giuseppe Peano’s and Gottlob Frege’s invention of a new ideography for use in symbolic logic (which contradicted the Kantian doctrine of a separate philosophy of mathematics), the authors attempted to set up a still better system of logic on which to base mathematics. This effort reached its climax with the publication in 1910-13 of the three-volume Principia mathematica, now considered a historic masterpiece of mathematical architecture.

DNB, 1941-50, pp. 952-954 (Sir Edmund Whittaker); DSB, XIV, pp. 302-310; Slater, Bertrand Russell, A Collection, 16.