Haim Gaifman


Haim Gaifman is a logician, probability theorist, and philosopher of language who is professor of philosophy at Columbia University.

Education and career

In 1958 he received his M.Sc. at Hebrew University. Then in 1962, he received his Ph.D. at University of California, Berkeley under Alfred Tarski on the topic of infinite Boolean algebras. Since, he has held various permanent and visiting positions in mathematics, philosophy and computer science departments. While he was professor of mathematics at the Hebrew University, he taught courses in philosophy and directed the program in History and Philosophy of Science.

Philosophical work

Gaifman works in mathematical logic and developed the iterated ultrapower technique in set theory and models of Peano arithmetic. Further, he has results in the foundations of probability, defining probabilities on first-order and on richer languages. He has also worked in philosophy of language, philosophy of mathematics, and theoretical computer science.