Husserl and Realism in Logic and Mathematics

by Robert S. Tragesser

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521285872
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	02/16/1984
Series:	Modern European Philosophy
Pages:	146
Product dimensions:	5.43(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.47(d)

Table of Contents

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.