PURPOSES OF THE ASSOCIATION

The Association for Symbolic Logic is an international organization supporting research and critical studies in logic. Its primary function is to provide an effective forum for the presentation, publication, and critical discussion of scholarly work in this area of inquiry.

Logic is an ancient discipline that has undergone striking modern developments through the introduction of rigorous formal methods, stimulated largely by foundational problems in mathematics. "Symbolic logic" is a term intended to encompass the entire field of logical inquiry, undertaken in this modern spirit.

The Association was founded in 1936, at a time when great advances in logic were beginnning to be made. Its first members were mainly mathematicians and philosophers who perceived a common ground and sought to strengthen it. Recent research in other areas such as computer science, linguistics, and cognitive science has also been inspired by logic, and the current membership and activities of the Association reflects such expanding interests.

The Association aims to promote an awareness and appreciation of these advances among all who may benefit. Bringing together and serving persons with diverse backgrounds remains an important function of the Association. Although it has many different aspects and is growing rapidly, the field of logic is still coherent; it is the objective of the Association to present current research in logic to all logicians in such a way as to preserve the essential integrity of the entire subject and to promote interactions of all aspects of logic with each other.

To achieve these ends, the Association engages in a broad range of activities. It organizes and sponsors meetings and summer schools throughout the world; it publishes books and journals; it awards prizes for excellence in research and in expository writing; it maintains professional ties with related organizations; it maintains a web site which provides information of interest to logicians; and it sends to its members a quarterly Newsletter mailing with programs of ASL meetings and other information.

MEETINGS

In recent years the Association has organized its Annual Meeting on a university campus in North America, and expects to continue this practice. An important objective of this meeting is to present current research in all aspects of logic in a way that is accessible to all logicians.

There usally are at least one or two additional North American meetings of the Association each year, generally in conjunction with meetings of the American Mathematical Society or the American Philosophical Association. Each year the Association also holds a European Summer Meeting, called Logic Colloquium, that often is co-sponsored by various organizations. This event may run for a week or more and frequently includes some form of summer school. Meetings of the Association normally include one-hour addresses by invited speakers as well as briefer reports contributed by ASL members. Abstracts of these reports are published in The Bulletin of Symbolic Logic.

The Association also regularly sponsors conferences in Latin America, Australia, New Zealand, Asia, and elsewhere. Reports of sponsored meetings are published in The Bulletin of Symbolic Logic.

Proposals are welcome for special joint meetings with other societies having an interest in the ideas and uses of logic, as are proposals for other suitable projects that are consistent with the aims of the Association. Such proposals should be sent to the Secretary-Treasurer of the Association at:
ASL, Box 742, Vassar College, 124 Raymond Avenue, Poughkeepsie, NY 12604 USA.

 

PUBLICATIONS

The official journals of the Association are The Journal of Symbolic Logic, The Review of Symbolic Logic, and The Bulletin of Symbolic Logic.

ASL books are published in cooperation with Cambridge University Press. The Association's book publishing program, initiated in 1999, includes the Lecture Notes in Logic. This series was published from 1993 to 1999 by Springer-Verlag under editorial control of the ASL. All books in this series are available from the Association, with discounts for members. The Association also has assumed editorial publishing responsibility for the book series Perspectives in Logic (formerly Perspectives in Mathematical Logic, Springer-Verlag).

The Association undertakes other publishing ventures as well. For example, it was an active participant in the project to publish the collected works of Kurt Goedel (Oxford University Press).

All of these publications are available to individual members of the Association at a discount.