Central and East European
Society for Phenomenology

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175696

Construction and constitution in mathematics

Mark Van Atten

pp. 237-288

Abstract

I argue that Brouwer's notion of the construction of purely mathematical objects and Husserl's notion of their constitution by the transcendental subject coincide. Various objections to Brouwer's intuitionism that have been raised in recent phenomenological literature (by Hill, Rosado Haddock, and Tieszen) are addressed. Then I present objections to Gödel's project of founding classical mathematics on transcendental phenomenology. The problem for that project lies not so much in Husserl's insistence on the spontaneous character of the constitution of mathematical objects, or in his refusal to allow an appeal to higher minds, as in the combination of these two attitudes.

Publication details

Published in:

Van Atten Mark (2015) Essays on Gödel's reception of Leibniz, Husserl and Brouwer. Dordrecht, Springer.

Pages: 237-288

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-10031-9_12

Full citation:

Van Atten Mark (2015) Construction and constitution in mathematics, In: Essays on Gödel's reception of Leibniz, Husserl and Brouwer, Dordrecht, Springer, 237–288.