From Brouwer To Hilbert: The Debate on the Foundations of Mathematics in the 1920s offers the first comprehensive introduction to the most exciting period in the foundation of mathematics in the twentieth century. The 1920s witnessed the seminal foundational work of Hilbert and Bernays in proof theory, Brouwer's refinement of intuitionistic mathematics, and Weyl's predicativist approach to the foundations of analysis. This impressive collection makes available the first English translations of twenty-five central articles by these important contributors and many others. (...) The articles have been translated for the first time from Dutch, French, and German, and the volume is divided into four sections devoted to Brouwer, Weyl, Bernays and Hilbert, and the emergence of intuitionistic logic. Each section opens with an introduction which provides the necessary historical and technical context for understanding the articles. Although most contemporary work in this field takes its start from the groundbreaking contributions of these major figures, a good, scholarly introduction to the area was not available until now. Unique and accessible, From Brouwer To Hilbert will serve as an ideal text for undergraduate and graduate courses in the philosophy of mathematics, and will also be an invaluable resource for philosophers, mathematicians, and interested non-specialists. (shrink)

The dissertation studies the mathematical strength of strict constructivism, a finitistic fragment of Bishop's constructivism, and explores its implications in the philosophy of mathematics. ;It consists of two chapters and four appendixes. Chapter 1 presents strict constructivism, shows that it is within the spirit of finitism, and explains how to represent sets, functions and elementary calculus in strict constructivism. Appendix A proves that the essentials of Bishop and Bridges' book Constructive Analysis can be developed within strict constructivism. Appendix B further (...) develops, within strict constructivism, the essentials of the functional analysis applied in quantum mechanics, including the spectral theorem, Stone's theorem, and the self-adjointness of some common quantum mechanical operators. Some comparisons with other related work, in particular, a comparison with S. Simpson's partial realization of Hilbert's program, and a discussion of the relevance of M. B. Pour-El and J. I. Richards' negative results in recursive analysis are given in Appendix C. ;Chapter 2 explores the possible philosophical implications of these technical results. It first suggests a fictionalistic account for the ontology of pure mathematics. This leaves a puzzle about how truths about fictional mathematical entities are applicable to science. The chapter then explains that for those applications of mathematics that can be reduced to applications of strict constructivism, fictional entities can be eliminated in the applications and the puzzle of applicability can be resolved. Therefore, if strict constructivism were essentially sufficient for all scientific applications, the applicability of mathematics of mathematics in science would be accountable. The chapter then argues that the reduction of mathematics to strict constructivism also reduces the epistemological question about mathematics to that about elementary arithmetic. The dissertation ends with a suggestion that a proper epistemological basis for arithmetic is perhaps a mixture of Mill's empiricism and the Kantian views. (shrink)

in die operative Logik und Mathematik Zweite Auflage Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg New York 1969 Paul Lorenzen o. Prof. der Philosophie an der Universitat Erlangen Geschaftsfilhrende Herausgeber: Prof. Dr. B. Eckmann Eidgenossische Technische Hochschule Zurich Prof. Dr. B. L. van cler Waerclen Mathematisches Institut der Universitat ZUrich ISBN 978-3-642-86519-0 ISBN 978-3-642-86518-3 (eBook) DOl 10.1007/978-3-642-86518-3 Aile Rechte vorbehalten. Kein Teil dieses Buches darf ohne schriftliche Genehmigung des Springer-Verlages ubersetzt oder in irgendeiner Form vervielfaltigt werden © by Springer-Verlag Berlin· Heidelberg 1955 und 1969 (...) Softcover reprint of the hardcover 2nd edition 1969 Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 73-76724 Titel-Nr. 5061 Vorwort zur zweiten Auflage. Fiir die Neuauflage ist der Text nur unwesentlich geandert worden. Es ist - neben der Korrektur einiger Ungenauigkeiten - vor allem die Terminologie und Symbolik an meine spateren Arbeiten angeglichen. Obwohl ich - verstandlicherweise - jetzt die Ansatze der spateren Arbeiten fiir "sachgemaBer" halte, z. B. eine Logik der Dialoge statt einer Logik der Kalkiile, die Verwendung indefiniter Quantoren statt einer expliziten Konstruktion von Sprachschichten, enthalt diese Neu­ auflage den Inhalt der 1. Auflage unverandert. Der Leser kann also einen Vergleich mit meinen spateren Arbeiten (vgl. Literaturverzeichnis) seIber durchfiihren. Mein Dank gilt wiederum dem Verlag fiir seine entgegenkommende Mitarbeit bei der Vorbereitung dieser Neuauflage. Erlangen, den 1. November I968. PAUL LORENZEN. Vorwort zur ersten Auflage. (shrink)

From 1931 until late in his life (at least 1970) Godel called for the pursuit of new axioms for mathematics to settle both undecided number-theoretical propositions (of the form obtained in his incompleteness results) and undecided set-theoretical propositions (in particular CH). As to the nature of these, Godel made a variety of suggestions, but most frequently he emphasized the route of introducing ever higher axioms of in nity. In particular, he speculated (in his 1946 Princeton remarks) that there might be (...) a uniform (though non-decidable) rationale for the choice of the latter. Despite the intense exploration of the \higher in nite" in the last 30-odd years, no single rationale of that character has emerged. Moreover, CH still remains undecided by such axioms, though they have been demonstrated to have many other interesting set-theoretical consequences. (shrink)

Stephen George Simpson. with definition 1.2.3 and the discussion following it. For example, taking 90(n) to be the formula n §E Y, we have an instance of comprehension, VYEIXVn(n€X<—>n¢Y), asserting that for any given set Y there exists a ...

Cette édition numérique a été réalisée à partir d'un support physique, parfois ancien, conservé au sein du dépôt légal de la Bibliothèque nationale de France, conformément à la loi n° 2012-287 du 1er mars 2012 relative à l'exploitation des Livres indisponibles du XXe siècle. Pages de début Avertissement Les paradoxes logiques Première partie - Signification et dénotation Les expressions simplement significatives et une catégorie d'expressions dénotatives : les descriptions définies Autres catégories d'expressions dénotatives L'élimination des expressions dénotatives Seconde partie - (...) Prédicativité et universalité Le principe du cercle vicieux La théorie substitutionnelle La théorie des types Unecertaine idée de la logique Références bibliographiques Pages de fin. (shrink)

This paper is divided into two parts. Part I provides a resumé of the evolution of the notion of predicativity. Part II describes our own work on the subject.Part I§1. Conceptions of sets.Statements about sets lie at the heart of most modern attempts to systematize all (or, at least, all known) mathematics. Technical and philosophical discussions concerning such systematizations and the underlying conceptions have thus occupied a considerable portion of the literature on the foundations of mathematics.

The unfolding of schematic formal systems is a novel concept which was initiated in Feferman , Gödel ’96, Lecture Notes in Logic, Springer, Berlin, 1996, pp. 3–22). This paper is mainly concerned with the proof-theoretic analysis of various unfolding systems for non-finitist arithmetic . In particular, we examine two restricted unfoldings and , as well as a full unfolding, . The principal results then state: is equivalent to ; is equivalent to ; is equivalent to . Thus is proof-theoretically equivalent (...) to predicative analysis. (shrink)