A fine presentation copy of the rare and important German translation of Tarski’s seminal monograph ‘The Concept of Truth in Formalized Languages’, inscribed by the author to the German-born Israeli mathematician Abraham Fraenkel (1891-1965) ‘Herrn Prof. Dr. Adolf Fraenkel mit besten Grüßen des Verfassers’ in black ink to the title page. With occasional pencilled marginal highlighting and annotations by Fraenkel.
The recipient, Abraham Fraenkel, is best-known for his foundational contributions to the development of set theory, particularly the Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory. Fraenkel emigrated to Israel in 1929 having accepted a position at the newly-established Hebrew University of Jerusalem where he would remain for the rest of his academic career, becoming the first Dean of the Faculty of Mathematics and serving as the Rector of the University from 1938-1940. During his time at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Fraenkel initiated a long and personal correspondence with Albert Einstein, who had been a founding member of the University in 1925. ‘It is no coincidence that Fraenkel was Einstein’s main contact in the university and his main source of information about it. When Einstein threatened to cut his involvement in the university, Fraenkel played a central role in convincing him to stay involved’ (Menachem Magidor, ‘Foreword to the 2016 English Edition’ in Fraenkel, Recollections of a Jewish Mathematician in Germany, p. xiv).
Originally published in Polish in 1933, the present German translation ‘served as the most important basis for the scientific discussion of Tarski’s ideas outside of Poland’ up until the publication of the English version in 1956 (Gruber, p. v). ‘It took two years and two translation attempts before it was translated into German in 1935. At first, a young and promising student of Kazimier Adjukiewicz, Zygmunt Schmierer was to translate a part of Tarski’s article. Having read this sample translation and consulted on it with Adjukiewicz and Ingarden, Kazimierz Twardowski, who acted on behalf of Tarski, decided that Schmierer could not be entrusted with this task. Following this, Twardowski considered another candidate, Leopold Blaustein, who met the high expectations and was entrusted with the German translation’ (Gruber, p. vi).
The German translation is also particularly significant for the first appearance of Tarksi’s ‘Postscript’ as well as the section of ‘Historical Notes’ in which Tarski emphasised ‘the independence of his investigations from those of Gödel and points to the parallels of the two’ (Gruber, p. 116).
Rare. OCLC list a handful of copies in German, Polish and Swiss institutions, but only four copies in North America (Getty Institute, University of Pennsylvania, University of Pittsburgh, and Harvard).
See: Martin Gruber, Alfred Tarski and the ‘Concept of Truth in Formalized Languages’: A Running Commentary with Consideration of the Polish Original and the German Translation.
