Husserl and Mathematics

Explores Husserl's view of phenomenology as a method by showing how Husserl applied it to the mathematics of his time.

Mirja Hartimo (Author)

9781108845779, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 5 August 2021

230 pages
23.6 x 15.9 x 1.7 cm, 0.49 kg

'This important work probes many of the critical problems that arose in this era of modern mathematics as it illustrates the reaction of Husserl to these issues … Highly recommended.' R. L. Pour, CHOICE

Husserl and Mathematics explains the development of Husserl's phenomenological method in the context of his engagement in modern mathematics and its foundations. Drawing on his correspondence and other written sources, Mirja Hartimo details Husserl's knowledge of a wide range of perspectives on the foundations of mathematics, including those of Hilbert, Brouwer and Weyl, as well as his awareness of the new developments in the subject during the 1930s. Hartimo examines how Husserl's philosophical views responded to these changes, and offers a pluralistic and open-ended picture of Husserl's phenomenology of mathematics. Her study shows Husserl's phenomenology to be a method capable of both shedding light on and internally criticizing scientific practices and concepts.

1. From the Division of Labor to Besinnung
2. The Chimera of Logicism: Husserl's Criticism of Frege
3. Clarifying the Goal of Modern Mathematics: Definiteness
4. Normativity of the Euclidean Ideal
5. Husserl's Formal and Transcendental Logic (1929)
6. Gödel, Skolem, and the Crisis of the 1930s
7. Husserl's Combination View of Mathematics
8. Kant and Husserl's Critical View of Logic
Epilogue: A Look Ahead.

Subject Areas: Western philosophy, from c 1900 - [HPCF], History of Western philosophy [HPC], Philosophy [HP], Humanities [H]