Crisis As the Basis of Mathematics and the Attempt to Solve It Cover Image

Kryzys podstaw matematyki przełomu XIX i XX wieku
Crisis As the Basis of Mathematics and the Attempt to Solve It

Author(s): Marlena Fila
Subject(s): Philosophy, History of Philosophy, Logic, Special Branches of Philosophy, Philosophy of Science
Published by: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu Papieskiego Jana Pawła II w Krakowie
Keywords: set theory;logicism;intuitionism;formalism;crisis of the basis of mathematics;initary methods

Summary/Abstract: By the end of the 19th century, mathematics had become very intensively developed. Mathematical logic became an independent discipline, and in the 1880s Cantor published his work on set theory. All this led to questions about the consistency of mathematical theories and decidability theorems. Therefore, for the second time in the history of mathematics, there emerged a crisis of the basis of mathematics.There were a few ideas for overcoming the crisis. In this paper, there will be described three trends in the philosophy of mathematics in the late 19th and early 20th centuries: logicism (Frege), intuitionism (Brouwer) and formalism (Hilbert). These three trends were described from the philosophical point of view and in the context of the crisis. Moreover, for each of them there will be present the most important methodological assumptions, and I will brie y de- scribe attempts to achieve them. This will describe the problem in such a way that allows for the grasping of important differences and similarities between logicism, intuitionism and formalism and better understand their causes.

  • Issue Year: 1/2014
  • Issue No: 13
  • Page Range: 56-78
  • Page Count: 23
  • Language: Polish