Kurt Gödel, a logician, was born in Brno, in what is now the Czech Republic, and educated at the University of Vienna, where he became privatdozent in 1933. In 1940 he joined the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, where he remained for the rest of his career. Following David Hilbert, Gödel was instrumental in establishing mathematical logic as a fundamental branch of mathematics, achieving results such as the incompleteness theorems that have had a profound impact on twentieth-century thought. In philosophy, by contrast, he represents the path not taken. Of his few writings in this area, including posthumous publications, those that focus on the more immediate ramifications of his own (and closely related) mathematical work have had the greatest impact.

GÖdel's Influence

A close student of the history of philosophy, Gödel follows Plato...