Dear all,

our next speaker in the Philosophy of Science Colloquium organized by the Institute Vienna Circle is Richard Zach (IVC Fellow and University of Calgary), who will give a talk on December 18, 4.45-6.15 pm. 

All are welcome!

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Philosophy of Science Colloquium TALK: Richard Zach (IVC Fellow and University of Calgary)

Theories and Models from Hilbert to Tarski

Philosophy of Science Colloquium
The Institute Vienna Circle holds a Philosophy of Science Colloquium with talks by our present fellows.

Date: 18/12/2025

Time: 16h45

Venue: New Institute Building (NIG), Universitätsstraße 7, 1010 Wien, HS 2i

In the 1920s and 30s, the tools of symbolic logic began to be applied to the study of axiomatic theories and their models. Two main traditions can be identified in this regard. The first is the work of David Hilbert on the axiomatic method. He and his students such as Paul Bernays began to formulate axiomatic theories in the predicate calculus at the beginning of the 1920s. On the other hand, Rudolf Carnap and later Alfred Tarski used the simple theory of types as a background theory to formulate axiom systems and their consequences. The talk will survey these traditions and compare their metatheoretical approaches. In Hilbert's case the focus was on proof theoretic questions and investigations such as consistency; in the case of Carnap and Tarski the focus was on model theoretic concepts and questions such as consequence and categoricity.