23 July 2012 marks the centenary of the birth of historian and philosopher of logic Jean van 
Heijenoort, whose anthology From Frege to Goedel helped define the nature and scope of modern 
mathematical logic for several generations of logicians and the canon of fundamental works that 
comprise the text for the formative period of mathematical logic as we know it today. His influence
in the history of mathematical logic was furthered by his work as the editor of the papers of 
Jacques Herbrand and in his contributions to the publication of the multi-volume Collected Works 
of Kurt Gödel. The articles, published and unpublished, that were brought together in his Selected 
Essays articulated his conception of the course of the origin and development of mathematical logic.
His El dessarollo de la teoria de la cuantificacion provided an exposition of the "family of formal
systems" that comprise quantification theory and its proof procedures: the axiomatic method, itself
comprised of Frege-type systems and Hilbert-type systems; Herbrand quantification; natural deduction;
and the Gentzen sequent calculus, which van Heijenoort enumerated as the four principal approaches 
to first-order predicate calculus. He briefly examined the history of each and considered them in 
their classical, intuitionistic, and minimal versions and compared the strengths and weaknesses of each.

As editor of From Frege to Goedel, van Heijenoort exercised a critical influence on the historiography
of logic through much of the second half of the twentieth century. Although aspects of his views on
the nature and scope of mathematical logic have more recently been challenged, as have aspects of 
his conception of the history of mathematical logic, his ideas remain of continuing influence among
historians and philosophers of logic and frequently serve as the starting point in discussions which
challenge his views, for example, his often exaggerated emphasis on the pivotal work of Gottlob 
Frege and corresponding comparative neglect of the contributions of Frege's contemporaries among 
the algebraic logicians, and in particular of Charles Sanders Peirce and Ernst Schröder. Thus van 
Heijenoort's work continues to occupy a significant place in the historiography and philosophy of logic.

In addition to his historical work, van Heijenoort left a body of manuscripts and typescripts, 
many of which were distributed to a handful of close colleagues and to his Brandeis University 
logic students, and in which he explored the model-theoretic properties of the falsifiability tree 
method, particularly its soundness and completeness, and the relation between the truth tree and 
falsifiability tree methods and its ancestors, in particular Herbrand quantification and Beth 
tableaux. In his Introduction a la sémantique des logiques non-classiques, van Heijenoort applied 
the tree method to intuitionistic and modal logic.

We invite contributions to the special issue of Logica Universalis devoted to any and all aspects 
of van Heijenoort?s work in logic, its history and philosophy. Contributions for consideration 
should be sent in PDF to the guest editor Irving H. Anellis at ianellis@iupui.edu.


Publication schedule:
Initial submission: 31 January 2012
Preview copy: 31 March 2012
Final copy: 31 May 2012
Publication target date: 23 July 2012

Sincerely,

Irving H. Anellis
Visiting Research Associate
Peirce Edition, Institute for American Thought
902 W. New York St.
Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis Indianapolis, IN 46202-5159 USA
URL: http://www.irvinganellis.info