[FOM] Who was Luc Jardie?

[Brice Halimi]

Luc Jardie is the fictionalized version of Jean Cavaillès, who is indeed a
key figure in the french philosophy of mathematics (in contact with members
of Bourbaki during the thirties) and was a great member of the French
Resistance ("mouvement Libération"). He is indeed the author of the works
you mention (only, it is "Réflexions sur sur le fondement des mathématiques,
instead of "Essai sur le Problème..."), and he was shot in February 1944.
His complete works have been published by Hermann in 1994.

Brice Halimi

----- Original Message -----
From: "Juliette Kennedy" <jkennedy at cc.helsinki.fi>
To: <fom at cs.nyu.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, June 06, 2007 10:51 AM
Subject: [FOM] Who was Luc Jardie?





Who was Luc Jardie?

Jean-Pierre Melville's 1969 film about members of the French Resistance
called "Army of Shadows" (L'armee des ombres) features a reclusive,
aristocratic philosopher named Luc Jardie. The character has written 5
books:

"Methode Axiomatique et Formalisme," "Transfini et Continu," "Essai sur
le Probleme du Fondement de Mathematiques," "Sur le Logique et la Theorie
de la Science" and finally "Remarques sur la Formation de la Theorie
Abstraite des Ensembles." (Sorry I cannot supply proper accents on this
keyboard.)

The film is based on the novel of the same name by Joseph Kessel, but
draws heavily on Melville's own experience as a Resistance member.

Question: did any logician-set theorist play a role in
the French Resistance? The titles of the books point to their
being written by a Bourbaki member - didn't
the Bourbaki book on set theory come out in the 60's?

(Another suggestion
which was made is that during the 1960s Melville crossed paths with some
logician of the formalist stripe at, say, La Coupole.)

The film came out in the U.S. just now; it was hardly seen in France when
it first came out, but it is now considered one of Melville's greatest
films.

Greetings,

Juliette Kennedy
------
Department of Mathematics and Statistics
P.O. Box 68 (Gustaf Hällströmin katu 2b)
FI-00014 University of Helsinki, Finland
tel. (+358-9)-191-51446, fax (+358-9)-191-51400
http://www.helsinki.fi/science/logic
e-mail: juliette.kennedy at helsinki.fi
mobile: +358-50-371-4576

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