Abstract
S(zp,zp) performs an innovative analysis of one of modern logic’s most celebrated cornerstones: the proof of Gödel’s first incompleteness theorem. The book applies the semiotic theories of French post- structuralists such as Julia Kristeva, Jacques Derrida and Gilles Deleuze to shed new light on a fundamental question: how do mathematical signs produce meaning and make sense?

S(zp,zp) analyses the text of the proof of Gödel’s result, and shows that mathematical language, like other forms of language, enjoys the full complexity of language as a process, with its embodied genesis, constitutive paradoxical forces and unbounded shifts of meaning. These effects do not infringe on the logico-mathematical validity of Gödel’s proof. Rather, they belong to a mathematical unconscious that enables the successful function of mathematical texts for a variety of different readers.

S(zp,zp) breaks new ground by synthesising mathematical logic and post-structural semiotics into a new form of philosophical fabric, and offers an original way of bridging the gap between the “two cultures”.


Roy Wagner received a mathematics Ph.D. from Tel Aviv University in 1997, and ten years later a philosophy Ph.D. from the same university. He publishes papers in mathematics, philosophy of mathematics and critical theory. Roy Wagner held visiting positions in Paris VI, Cambridge University, Boston University, and the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science. He currently teaches at the school of computer science in the Academic College of Tel-Aviv-Jaffa.

Information
Type: Monograph
Language(s): English
Year: 2009
Number of page(s): 237
Code (printed): ISBN 978-88-7699-157-8
Code (electronic): ISBN 978-88-7699-158-5 - Open Access Publication