Box 3

Correspondence

Last updated: 2018-06-29 12:31:23

GENERAL NOTICE:
Most letters in box 3 have not been studied thoroughly till now, so the following description is mainly in headlines.

21. The Graham Nerlich correspondence

A few letters from Nerlich, 1957.

22. The Timothy Potts correspondence

A number of letters from Potts, 1962–67.

These are just signed 'Timothy', but David and Steffi Lewis as well as Mary Prior believe they are from Timothy Potts; indeed they are written on 'University of Leeds' paper, where Potts was in these years.
--- Per Hasle

23. The Smart correspondence

A substantial number of letters from Smart, 1951–69 (the great majority 51-56).

NOTE (Per Hasle): Prior first met J. J. C. Smart at the 1951 Philosophical Congress in Sydney. It is clear that Smart was one of Prior's earliest correspondents on the logic of time; here are some excerpts from his letters:

7.3.1952: "Thanks for the Bochenski notes - "

"I'll give them some of the stuff on Time" (in a lecture soon after to be given in Melbourne).

4.3.1953:

(Concerning the approaching 'First NZ conference on Philosophy' (1953), organised by ANP:)

"As for the subject, what I'd thought of doing would be a paper on "The Temporal Asymmetry of the Universe", or some such title. You will see my problem if you read p.346 of 'Philosophy' 1950 which is part of a review by Findlay. My contention is that if you fill in all the details of Findlay's 'backwards' universe it becomes indistiguishable from the ordinary one, for all than features which give rise to the illusion of passage of time will be reversed, and so the illusion itself will be reversed."

13.6.55:

"Thanks for the first batch of John Locke's. I enjoyed reading them. Some small comments: What about a system in which P and F and also a present-tense operator can operate on tenseless p's and q's? This would be analogous to ordinary modal systems, where L and M operate on modalised or unmodalised arguments?"

24. The Tim Smiley correspondence

3 letters from Smiley (1961, 1963, the last letter undated). Two manuscripts:

• - 'On Lukasiewicz's L-modal system' (in all likelihood by Smiley, and at any rate not by ANP)
• - 'What is Strict Implication'

By some author, presenting joint work by himself and Smiley (See p. 3 'Acknowledgements'); on account of the style the other author could hardly be ANP.
--- Per Hasle

25. The Sobocinsky correspondence

A number of letters from Sobocinsky, 1953–69.

26. The Ivo Thomas correspondence

A substantial number of letters from Thomas, 1952–69.

27. The Christopher Williams correspondence

A few letters from Williams, 1968.

28. The G.H. von Wright correspondence

A few letters from von Wright, 1955–66.

29. Manuscript

Manuscripts by Sibajiban:

    1. Sibajiban: 'Fallacy and Contradiction', T (7 p.)
    2. Manjulekha Bhattacharya, and Sibajiban: 'Equivalence of Formulae Containing Mixed Quantification', T (3 p.)
    3. Sibajiban: 'Alternative Logics of Knowledge', T (16 p.)