FOUNDING CONTEMPORARY EPISTEMIC LOGIC

HINTIKKA, JAAKKO.

Knowledge and Belief. An Introduction to the Logic of the two Notions.

Ithaca, New York, Cornell University Press, (1962). 8vo. Orig. full blue cloth w. blue lettering to spine and front board. Very minor bumping to capitals and minor bleaching to small part of lower spine. Original blue dust-jacket w. red lettering. Spine faded and some minor brownspotting. Stamp to title-page ( Weston College Library Weston, Mass.) and stamped library-number and date to verso of title-page. An excellent, internally near mint, copy in an unusually fine dust-jacket. Not price-clipped. X, 179 pp.

The uncommon first edition, first issue of Hintikka's seminal main work, which also constitutes the main work of contemporary epistemic logic.

The Finnish born philosopher and logician, Jaakko Hintikka (born 1929), Professor of Philosophy at the University of Boston, is generally accepted as the founder of formal epistemic logic and of game semantics for logic. He has contributed seminally to the fields of philosophical and mathematical logic, philosophy of mathematics and science, language theory and epistemology. Independently of Evert Willem Beth he discovered the semantic tableau, and he is famous for his work on game semantics and logical quantifiers. In 2005 Hintakka was awarded the Schock Prize in logic and philosophy, the philosophical equivalent to the Nobel prize, "for his pioneering contributions to the logical analysis of modal concepts, IN PARTICULAR THE CONCEPTS OF KNOWLEDGE AND BELIEF ".

The first edition of this seminal work, which has founded contemporary epistemic logic, is very difficult to find. The work was reprinted three times between 1962 and 1969, but after that the work was only printed again in 2005.
"In 1962 Jaakko Hintikka published "Knowledge and Belief: An Introduction to the Logic of the Two Notions" with Cornell University Press. Almost every paper or a book on epistemic and doxastic logic that has appeared since then has referred to this seminal work. Although many philosophers working in logic, epistemology, game-theory, economics, computer science and linguistics mention the book, it is very likely that most have never literally had their hands on it, much less owned a copy. After a fourth printing in 1969, Knowledge and Belief went out of print and as many of us have found to our dismay, it has become increasingly difficult to find used copies at our local shops or online. It is our pleasure to provide the interdisciplinary community with this reprint edition of Knowledge and Belief." (Abstract of the re-issue edition, Prepared by Vincent F. Hendricks & John Symons, King's College Publications, 2005).

In this breakthrough work, Hintikka sets out to understand and explain the logical behavior of the two fundamental epistemological notions, Knowledge and belief. "The word "logic" which occurs in the subtitle of this work is to be taken seriously. My first aim is to formulate and to defend explicit criteria of consistency for certain sets of statements - criteria which, it is hoped, will be comparable with the criteria of consistency studied in the established branches of logic. What the statements in question are like is also indicated in the title [...]" (Chapter One, Prolegomena, p.3).

"Knowledge and Belief" has been extremely influential from the time of its appearance and continues to be so to this day, also due to the fact that epistemic logic has greatly influenced the fields of game theory, artificial intelligence and distributed computing.

Order-nr.: 36630