Jean Nicod

Jean George Pierre Nicod (c. 1893 - 16 February 1924) was a French philosopher and logician.

In his most important work, he used Henry M. Sheffer's discovery that all logical functions used in standard propositional calculus can be expressed by means of the Sheffer stroke to derive all axioms of propositional calculus from just one axiom and one rule of inference. He also developed Nicod's criterion.

Nicod died at the age of 31 from tuberculosis.

See also Carl Hempel's raven paradox.

Legacy
The French Institut Jean Nicod (Paris) &mdash; a CNRS research laboratory at the interface between philosophy, cognitive science and the social sciences &mdash; is dedicated to the memory of the French philosopher. Jean Nicod's name is also commemorated by the prestigious Jean Nicod Lectures, delivered annually in Paris by a leading philosopher of mind or philosophically oriented cognitive scientist and published as a series by MIT Press. The lecturer is awarded the Jean Nicod Prize by the French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS).

Main works

 * A Reduction in the Number of Primitive Propositions of Logic, Proc. Camb. Phil. Soc. 19 (1917) 32-41
 * La géométrie des sensations de mouvement, Revue de métaphysique et de morale 28 (1921), 537-543.
 * Les tendances philosophiques de M. Bertrand Russell, Revue de métaphysique et de morale 29 (1922), 77-84.
 * Mathematical Logic and the Foundations of Mathematics, in The Encyclopedia Britannica. The New Volumes, 12th ed., vol. 3, London/New York, 1922, 874-876.
 * La géométrie dans le monde sensible, Paris, 1923 (Thèse Univ. Paris).
 * Le problème logique de l'induction, Paris, 1923 (Thèse complémentaire Univ. Paris)
 * Les relations des valeurs et les relations de sens en logique formelle, Revue de métaphysique et de morale 31 (1924), 467-80.
 * Freedom of Association and Trade Unionism: An Introductory Survey, International Labor Review 9 (1924), 467-480.
 * Foundations of Geometry & Induction, Containing Geometry in a Sensible World and the Logical Problem of Induction, prefaces by Bertrand Russell and André Lalande, K. Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., London; Harcourt, Brace & Co., New York 1930. Reprinted: Routledge, London, 2000.