Stephen Cole Kleene quotes:

I had a liberal arts education at Amherst College where I had two majors, mathematics and philosophy.

I went to Princeton in the fall of 1930 as a half-time instructor.

The job in Wisconsin was the first genuine offer of an academic job in a university which I received.

Those three years ended with June 1933. At that time I left Princeton, having submitted my Ph.D. thesis.

I don't think Post often came to Princeton during the '30s. I can't remember ever seeing him in Princeton.

In the fall term of 1933-34 I was on my family farm in Maine.

I think that after Church got his Ph.D. he studied in Europe, maybe in the Netherlands, for a year or two.

I went to Princeton from Amherst, where I split my interests between mathematics and philosophy.

And what I learned in Church's course. He trained us intensively in his new system, which he was just developing. Two papers were presented. I think the second paper wasn't published until well after the course was finished.

I'm sure Church got some of his ideas from this trip to Europe.

As I say, there was this movement to try to bring philosophers and mathematicians together into an organization where they would talk to each other. An organization wasn't effective unless you had a journal. That's about all I know.

It wasn't until my second year that I got to actually work with Church.

Here at Wisconsin we didn't get an undergraduate course in mathematical logic until the '60s.

When I got to Princeton I made a point of attending the Philosophy Club and listening to the lectures, but I didn't get involved in any discussions in those clubs. I guess after the first year, I dropped that.

I had some hesitations about philosophy because, if you worked out a philosophical theory, it was hard to know whether you were going to be able to prove it or whether other theories had just as good a claim on belief.

I read one or two other books which gave me a background in mathematics other than logic.

I think Veblen had an interest in logic.