Husserl and Realism in Logic and Mathematics

Robert Tragesser aims to determine the conditions under which a realist ontology of mathematics and logic might be justified, taking Husserl as his starting point.

Robert S. Tragesser (Author)

9780521285872, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 16 February 1984

146 pages
21.6 x 13.8 x 1.2 cm, 0.18 kg

Mathematics and logic present crucial cases in deciding whether the world is of our making or whether some form of realism is true. Edmund Husserl, who was initially a mathematician, discusses this general question extensively, but although his views influenced the Dutch intuitionists and were taken very seriously by Gödel, they have not been widely appreciated among analytical philosophers. In this book Robert Tragesser sets out to determine the conditions under which a realist ontology of mathematics and logic might be justified, taking as his starting point Husserl's treatment of these metaphysical problems. He does not aim primarily at an exposition of Husserl's phenomenology, although many of the central claims of phenomenology are clarified here. Rather he exploits its ideas and methods to show how they can contribute to answering Michael Dummet's question 'Realism or Anti-Realism?'. In doing so he makes a challenging and provocative contribution to the debate.

Editors' introduction
Preface
list of abbreviations
Introduction: the idea of Husserl's phenomenological foundation for logic
1. On meaning and on the real
2. From naïve mathematical realism to the origin of intuition and the formal
3. Noematic analysis
4. On the path to mathematics
5. Phenomenological ontology and the law of the excluded middle
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Philosophy of mathematics [PBB], Social & political philosophy [HPS]