I’ve been reading John Burgess’s book “Fixing Frege”:http://www.amazon.com/Fixing-Frege-Princeton-Monographs-Philosophy/dp/0691122318/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1205369760&sr=8-1, and I have to say, it’s one of the best books I’ve read in ages. Burgess’s subject is recent attempts to rescue from the inconsistent theory Frege proposed, theories that are consistent and strong enough in which to do serious mathematics. Burgess is somewhat sceptical of the project’s ultimate success, but the main aim here is to set out the state of play. And I would never have thought it was possible to do it as clearly as Burgess does. It’s quite hard, for instance, to give novice readers an approximate guide to what someone is saying, and to say quite clearly in what respects you are approximating. Usually if you can do that, you can state the non-approximate statement just as clearly. But Burgess does this kind of thing with apparent ease. Really highly recommended if you want to know what’s been going on in this field.

In other news, Vincent Hendricks’ new philosophy show on prime-time Danish TV has started, and you can see episodes “here”:http://www.ruc.dk/cuid/tankensmagt/. And you can see pictures of him receiving the Elite Science Prize from a famous Australian “here”:mms://media.xstream.dk/dk4_2006/eliteforsker_v_f_hendricks_2008.wmv.