- Kurt Gödel (plato.standford.edu)
Kurt Friedrich Gödel (b. 1906, d. 1978) was one of the principal founders of the modern, metamathematical era in mathematical logic. He is widely known for his Incompleteness Theorems, which are among the handful of landmark theorems in twentieth century mathematics, but his work touched every field of mathematical logic, if it was not in most cases their original stimulus. In his philosophical work Gödel formulated and defended mathematical Platonism, the view that mathematics is a descriptive science, or alternatively the view that the concept of mathematical truth is objective. On the basis of that viewpoint he laid the foundation for the program of conceptual analysis within set theory (see below). He adhered to Hilbert’s “original rationalistic conception” in mathematics (as he called it); and he was prophetic in anticipating and emphasizing the importance of large cardinals in set theory before their importance became clear.