Abstract

While the Gödel centenary year 2006 triggered a lot of conference and workshop activity on Gödel, the years leading to it stand out by exhibiting several excellent publications on Gödel's life and work, most notably the completion of the Kurt Gödel Collected Works series . The two volumes of Kurt Gödel. Wahrheit & Beweisbarkeit, written in German and edited by E. Köhler et al., constitute something like the ‘German-Austrian contribution’ to this renewal of interest in Gödel's legacy, even though not all of the articles in the volumes actually have German or Austrian authors.2 Indeed, as P. Weibel explains in the preface of the first volume, one of the intentions of the editors was to present Gödel as part of the cultural history of Austria. At the same time, the volumes highlight the contrast between Gödel's national reception—or lack thereof—and the way in which he was perceived and appreciated internationally, and although this discrepancy is now fortunately a thing of the past, its history is worth documenting. In this respect the two volumes will be of lasting value and importance, and the editors must be given credit not just for recording Gödel's delayed acceptance by Austrian politicians and university headquarters, but also for promoting Gödel's case. This being said, there is something extravagant and slightly queer about the two Kurt Gödel. Wahrheit & Beweisbarkeit volumes. Parts of them seem to be written for a generally educated audience, while other parts will be understandable only to logicians and philosophers who specialize in the topics covered. The volumes consist partly of biographical essays, interviews about Gödel, photos of him and his family, and letters by or to him, but they also include several non-historical articles which use …