PREFACE, After the appearance in 1952 of my “Introduction to Metamathematies”, written for students atthe first-year graduate level, I had no expectation of writing another text, But various occasions arose which required me to think about how to present parts of the same material more briefly, to a more general audience, or to students at an earlier educational level.* ‘These newer expositions were received well enough that I was persuaded to prepare the present book for undergraduate students in the Junior year. In “Introduction to Metamathematics”, the study of mathematical logic begins properly only in Chapter V (with some definitions in Chapter IV). Graduate students in mathematics can cover rapidly the introductory material which precedes it there. But for less advanced students or in shorter courses, too much time would be used by such a thorough intro- duction. I am now convinced that it is also sound pedagogically and scientifically to start doing logic (correctly) right from the beginning, even if not all the reasons for doing it nor all the criteria governing how it is done have been enumerated in advance. The rest of the “introduction” can come later. On this basis, Part I (Chapters I-III) of the present book gives quite a thorough, yet elementary, treatment of mathematical logic of first order (substantially equivalent to Chapters V-VIT and §73 of IM). The treat- ‘ment does not stop at formulating logic in one way and practicing with that, as one might do at an even more elementary level. Modern logicians characteristically work with their material in a flexible manner, using different formulations, and passing from one to another, as suits the purpose at hand, Thus in Part I the student will first meet model theory (truth tables) in a fuller treatment than in IM, then Hilbert-type proof theory (with postulates, including modus ponens), and thirdly proof theory handled through derived rules. The principal derived rules are essentially the ones, akin to those in Gentzen’s natural deduction systems, which I hrave been using in teaching logic since 1936, (In Chapter VI, a Gentzen- ‘type sequent system will be introduced, as a fourth formulation of logic.) Part IL of the book is intended to supplement Part I, by providing greater depth of understanding of Part I and an introduction to some of * Cr. the last five items under my name in the bibliography (pp. 378-379).vil PREFACE the newer ideas and more profound results of logical research in the present century. In Part M1 the treatment is [ess elementary than in Part I, Ac- to the time available and the level of the,class, the material in Part It may be surveyed or studied more intensively. 1 have never believed that even the average student is benefited by avoiding entirely material that only the better students can be counted on to appreciate fully. How- ever, trial of the material in classes has showa that, omitting the starred sections, a class ean in a semester get part way into Chapter VI, Specifically, Chapter LV isthe postponed “introduction” (abridged from IM Chapters 1-111) plus an introduction and prospectus to the study of formal number theory (Chapters IV, VIII of IM). Chapter V surveys the Famous incompleteness and undecidability results of Gédel, Church and others, using the Turing machine concept, without always giving detailed proofs. (Thus an overview is provided of some of the principal results of IM § 2 and Part II, without the detailed theory developed there.) These {vo chapters concern the foundations of mathematies more than pure logic. In Chapter VI the emphasis reverts to logic. Gadel’s completeness theorem and Gentzen’s theorem (besides theorems of Liwenheim, Skolem, Herbrand, Henkin, Beth, Craig and A. Robinson) are obtained, using an approach which has been inthe literature only since 1955. There are more compact treatments of Gidel’s completeness theorem. The one used here is thought to have the merit, for an introduction to the subject, that almost from the very beginning it should both be clear in what direction one is going and plausible that with patience in managing details one can thus reach the goal, Besides, this approach gives Gentzen’s theorem quickly, ‘Miough nonconstructively. (This chapter corresponds to Part IV of IM, but there are considerable differences in the approach and selection of topics.) . Chapters IV and V can be omitted in order to fucilitate completing ‘Chapter V1 in a semester course emphasizing logie without the foundations ‘of miathematies. (A few points from Chapters IV and V can then be picked uup us needed in Chapter Vi, and only a few items in Chapter VI will have to be omitted.) A fair number of exercises is supplied; but especially in Part Il they do ‘ot illustrate all the topics. A course taught from this book is not intended to be primarily « problem course. The student should be disabused of the idea Freshman calculus students often have that the text is of no impor- tance exeept as it helps him to do the exercises, Mastering definitions is especially important to a proper understanding of the enterprise. T am gratefil to H, William Oliver and Edward Pols for taking the notes on my lectuses at NSF Summer Institutes at Williams in 1956 and Bowsloin in 1961, respectively. The 1956 lectures and notes were reworked PREFACE ix in 1961, and the latter have been reworked and very much expanded in this book. Among the added subjects are ones suggested by H. Jerome Keisler, Georg Kreisel and Julius R. Weinberg. Keisler also suggested improvements, and supplied some eight exercises, after teaching from a draft of the book. Weinberg, William W. Boone, Burton Dreben and Jean van Heijenoort helped with some references. Particularly, the last {wo persons are my source for a more accurate assessment of the contribu- tions of Lowenheim, Skolem and Herbrand than has hitherto prevailed in the literature, Finally, I thank William E, Ritter for reading the printer's proof independently of myself, and for suggesting improvements made in proof, C. Kleene Madison, Wisconsin October, 196MATHEMATICAL LOGIC