Henry Maurice Sheffer

Henry Maurice Sheffer (* 1882 in Ukraine ; † 1964 ) was an American logician .

Life

Sheffer was born in the Ukraine to Polish Jews. In 1892 he emigrated to the USA with his parents and six siblings. After graduating from the Boston Latin School , he studied at Harvard University , including logic with Josiah Royce . In 1907 he obtained his master’s degree, in 1908 he obtained a doctorate in philosophy . From 1916 until his retirement in 1952, Sheffer was a professor at the Faculty of Arts at Harvard.

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Sheffer published little. His writings were only intended for his students; only his students were allowed to hear his lectures; He always expelled guests from the room, even if they were prominent personalities.

In his most important publication (see literature) he coined the term Boolean algebra and proved that it can be defined with a single operator (NAND or NOR ). Likewise, propositional logic can be formulated with a single junctor , the Sheffer line , which has the same truth table as the logical NAND. Charles S. Peirce had discovered these facts as early as 1880, but the relevant paper was not published until 1913.

Susanne K. Langer is one of Sheffer's best-known students .

literature

• Sheffer, HM: A set of Five Independent Postulates for Boolean Algebra, with application to logical constants. Transactions, American Mathematical Society 14: 481-88 (1913).

credentials

• Michael Scanlan: The Known and Unknown HM Sheffer , in: The Transactions of the CS Peirce Society 36 (2000), 193-224. biographical essay
• Willard van Orman Quine , Henry D. Aiken, Burton S. Dreben, Hao Wang and Harry A. Wolfson : Henry Maurice Sheffer. , in: Harvard University Gazette 60/14 (December 26, 1964), 87-88. Reprinted in Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 38 (October 1965), 103-104.

Web links

• Group picture with Sheffer