Husserl Stud (2006) 22:193222 DOI 10.

1007/s10743-006-9010-y

Husserls philosophy of mathematics: its origin and relevance

Guillermo E. Rosado Haddock

Received: 21 March 2006 / Accepted: 21 July 2006 / Published online: 19 December 2006 Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2006

Abstract This paper offers an exposition of Husserls mature philosophy of mathematics, expounded for the rst time in Logische Untersuchungen and maintained without any essential change throughout the rest of his life. It is shown that Husserls views on mathematics were strongly inuenced by Riemann, and had clear afnities with the much later Bourbaki school. Keywords Husserl Logic Mathematics Manifold Riemann Bourbaki Platonism Zermelo-Russell Paradox.

Introduction In Chapter X of the rst volume of Logische Untersuchungen1. Husserl discusses briey his afnities with and differences from the views on logic of past philosophers. He clearly states that Leibniz, Bolzano and Lotze, in this order, are those philosophers with whose views he coincides the most. In particular, this afnity is grounded on the common understanding that logic and mathematics are very close relatives. In this sense, Husserls views are also related to those of his contemporaries Frege and Hilbert. They are all Leibnizians with regard to logic and its relation to mathematics, but the intellectual grandsons of the great Leibniz interpret differently their Leibnizian heritage. As is well known, for Frege and his intellectual inheritors, like
1

Logische Untersuchungen I (from now on abbreviated as LU), 19001901, Husserliana XVIII, 1975 (hereafter cited as Hua XVIII).

G. E. Rosado Haddock (&) Department of Philosophy, University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras, PR 00931-1572, USA e-mail: grosado@uprrp.edu

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Whitehead and Russell, mathematics (in Freges case non-geometrical mathematics) was reducible to logic, in the sense that all its concepts could be dened in terms of logical concepts and all its theorems derived from logical axioms. They were, thus, logicists, as this term is currently understood in the foundations of mathematics. Husserl, like Hilbert, was no reductionist either to logic or to set theory, as clearly expressed already in 1890 in a letter to Carl Stumpf,2 and although he had begun his investigations on the foundations of mathematics under the inuence of Franz Brentanos mild psychologism, as attested by his profes ber den Begriff der Zahl3 and its expansion and sorships dissertation U development Philosophie der Arithmetik,4 published at the beginning of 1891, already about 1890 he began to distance himself from such early views. Such a change was the primary reason why Husserl did not publish the second volume of his early work, even though that volume, in contrast to the rst one, should have dealt with the logical foundations of arithmetic. The book that would result from such a development of his thought could not be seen as the second part of Philosophie der Arithmetik. That book was going to be published a decade later under the title Logische Untersuchungen. Husserls misgivings with respect to his earlier views received a decisive impulse from the reading, in the early 1890s, precisely of the philosophers mentioned above, namely, Leibniz, Bolzano and Lotze, as well as ofof all peopleDavid Hume, as clearly attested in the Husserl Chronik5 and in his Introduction to the Logical Investigations.6 But the abandonment of his former psychologistic leanings was not the only reason for not writing a second volume of Philosophie der Arithmetik, a volume which as projected, was in any case to be concerned with nonpsychologistic foundations of arithmetic. At least since 1890 Husserl had expanded his interests in foundational affairs to the whole of mathematics, as attested by the publication of his (sketches of) papers in Studien zur Arithmetik und Geometrie.7 The inuence of his friend and colleague Georg Cantor, and of Bernhard Riemann, Felix Klein and others was already very strong. Husserls mathematical studies, especially as a student and assistant of Karl Weierstrass (although he was also a student of Leopold Kronecker), his friendship with Georg Cantor, also a former student of both Weierstrass and Kronecker and a mathematician of overwhelming philosophical interests, and his study of Riemann and the whole tradition based on the latters work was the other component, besides the Leibnizian, which contributed to the development of Husserls views on logic, mathematics and their relationship.
2 Reprinted in Studien zur Arithmetik und Geometrie (from now on abbreviated as SAG), Husserliana XXI, 1983 (hereafter cited as Hua XXI). 3 Uber den Begriff der Zahl, 1887, reprinted as an appendix to Husserliana XII, 1970. 4 5 6 7

Philosophie der Arithmetik, 1891, Husserliana XII, 1970 (Hereafter cited as Hua XII). Karl Schuhmann, ed., Husserl-Chronik, 1977, p. 26. Introduction to the Logical Investigations, 1975, pp. 3538. See footnote 2 above.

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Riemann was, thus, Husserls other intellectual grandfather, the one he did not have in common with his intellectual cousin and rival Gottlob Frege. In this paper, after expounding Husserls views in the extremely important Chapter XI of the rst volume of Logische Untersuchungen, which we will complement with other Husserlian works, we will briey comment on this important source of Husserls philosophy of mathematics as well as on a very popular current view of mathematics with clear afnities to Husserls, namely, that of the Bourbaki school. Preliminaries In the rst ve sections of Chapter XI (6266) Husserl is concerned with the nature and objectivity of science. Although these sections are not part of his philosophy of mathematics, but just preliminaries, they contain some valuable distinctions and insights of Husserl, which can help in making a thorough assessment of Husserls importance for contemporary non-continental philosophy. At the beginning of 62 Husserl reminds8 us of the three senses in which one can speak of the unity of a science, namely, the anthropological and psychological unity of acts of thought, which is subjective and of no interest here, the unity of the domain of the science, which is objective and objectual (in ndlich), and the unity of the truths about that domain, which German: gegensta is objective but not objectual. These two objective domains, with which Husserl is here concerned are inseparable but should not be confused with one another. The connections between truths do not coincide with the connections between the objectualities about which those truths are truths. Thus, the objectual unity of a science does not coincide with the unity of its truths. In an act of knowledge, e.g., in physics we are concerned with something not merely objective but objectual. In some sense, says Husserl,9 truths enter the scene as an ideal correlate of the act of knowledge. To the connections of knowledge, Husserl adds,10 there correspond ideally the connections of truths, since connections of knowledge are...not only complexes of truths but complex truths. Sciences are, thus, complexes of truths. On the other hand, to a unity of truths there corresponds the unity of objectualities in the same discipline. Thus, as Husserl states,11 all singular truths of a science belong objectively together, since the objectualities about which they are truths belong together. To give a concrete example, the notions of force, velocity and acceleration are objectually related. Thus, they should be studied by a unique discipline, a dynamics. But that connection is different from the connection between, e.g., the second law of Newtonian mechanics, Force = Mass Acceleration and other primitive or derived laws of Newtonian mechanics. The objectual connection would remain the same even if the connection of truths about that objectual domain were
8 9

Hua XVIII, 62, pp. 230231. Ibid., p. 231. Ibid. Ibid., pp. 231232.

10 11

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different. It should be clear, however, that although their connection should not be confused with the objectual connection, the statements of Newtonian mechanicsas of any scienceat rst sight belong together precisely because the objectualities with which they are concerned belong together. In 63 Husserl makes it clear, however, that, since not any combination of truths forms an objective unity, even if they are truths about the same objectual domain, the unity of a science has to be given by a different sort of unity, namely, a unity of the foundational nexus. Hence, the unity of the objectual domain is only a necessary but not a sufcient condition for the unity of a science. Scientic knowledge, stresses Husserl,12 is [always] knowledge from the foundations. But to know the foundation of something, adds Husserl,13 is to acknowledge the necessity of something to be as it is. Necessity means in this context the same as nomic validity, i.e., validity in virtue of laws. Thus, for Husserl the following are equivalent expressions: (i) to understand that a state of affairs is regulated by laws, (ii) to understand that its truth is necessarily valid, (iii) to have knowledge of the foundation of a state of affairs, and (iv) to have knowledge of the foundation of its truth.14 A general truth is a foundational explanatory law, on which is based a whole class of necessary truths. Husserl divides truths in individual and general, [t]he rst [of which] contain (explicitly or implicitly) assertions about real existence of individual singularities, whereas general truths are free from such assertions and allow the derivation only of the possible existence of individualities (as based exclusively on concepts).15 Contrary to general truths, individual truths are by their very nature casual and, thus, when we speak about explanation of individual truths from the foundations, stresses Husserl,16 what is meant is the establishment of their necessity under certain circumstances. Thus, Husserl makes it clear17 that if the nexus between two facts is a nomic one, then the existence of that nexus on the basis of the laws that regulate the nexus of the sort concerned is determined as necessary, but only under the assumption of the corresponding circumstanceswhat in the more recent literature has been called initial conditions. It should be clear that Husserl is here concerned with what later authors have called the deductive-nomological model for the explanation of facts, e.g., of the fact that a determined object dissolves (or oats) in a determined liquid substance. Husserl is also concerned with the foundation of general truths, i.e., of truths, which also have a nomic character with respect to possible applications to facts falling under them. In this case we have to refer to general laws that generate the nomic proposition, which is being founded by means of spe12 13 14 15 16 17

Ibid., 63, p. 233. Ibid. See ibid, pp. 233234. Ibid., p. 234. Ibid. Ibid.

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cialization not individualization - and deductive inference. Thus, as Husserl states18, the foundation of general laws takes us to some general laws that by their very nature cannot be founded and are, thus, called fundamental laws. Hence, the systematic unity of the ideally closed totality of laws, on which are based ultimately all laws deductively obtained from them, forms the theoretical unity. It should be clear that we have here a very general scheme of deductive foundation of laws, which applies both to the deduction of laws from axioms in the logico-mathematical sciences and to the explanation of laws in the physical sciences. The difference between these two sorts of theories lies in the foundational laws. In the physical sciences those laws are hypotheses cum fundamento in re, as already explained in Chapter IV of the Prolegomena,19 but not explicitly articulated in this last chapterwhich was already conceptually completed before the remaining chapters were written.20 Moreover, after mentioning that arithmetic, geometry, analytical mechanics and mathematical astronomy are especially good examples of explanatory theories, and underlining that the possibility of assuming an explicative function is an obvious consequence of the denition, Husserl acknowledges21 that one can understand under theory in a more imprecise sense any deductive system, even though its ultimate foundations could very well not be foundational in the strict sense, but only preliminary foundations which bring us nearer to the ultimate foundations. This distinction brings to the fore another related distinction, namely, between explanatory nexus and deductive nexus. As Husserl points out,22 an explanatory nexus is always a deductive one, but a deductive nexus is not always an explanatory one, i.e., one based on fundamental laws. In the same way, adds Husserl,23 [a]ll foundations are premisses, but not all premises are foundations. Moreover, all deductions are necessary, since they are governed by laws. However, although all conclusions follow from inferential lawswhat we now call inference rulesthat does not mean that they follow from laws as premisses and that they are based on such laws in the strict sense.24 As Husserl had already stressed25 in his refutation of psychologism, to be derived according to logical inference rules should not be confused with being derived from logical laws as premisses. Husserl begins 64 with a distinction between essential and extra-essential unicatory principles. The truths of a science, says Husserl,26 are essentially one if their connection is based on what makes a science, namely, knowledge
18 19 20

Ibid. LU I, 23, p. 83.

It dates essentially from 1894, whereas the remaining ten chapters of the Prolegomena date from 1895. See on this issue Husserls Introduction to the Logical Investigations, pp. 3536. Ibid., p. 235. Ibid. Ibid. See ibid. LU I 19. Ibid. 64, pp. 235236.

21 22 23 24 25 26

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from the foundations, i.e., explanatory or foundational knowledge in the strict sense. Essential unity of the truths of a science is [always] explanatory unity.27 But, as Husserl adds,28 explanatory unity means theoretical unity, homogeneous unity of nomic foundation, i.e., homogeneous unity of explanatory principles. Sciences in which the unity of principles determines the objectual region and, thus, embraces in ideal unity all possible facts and general singularities having their explanatory principles in fundamental laws, are called by Husserl29 nomological sciences, since their most essential unifying principle is a nomic one (not an objectual one), or explanatory sciences, in case you want to emphazise the explanatory character of their unity. On the other hand, one can bring together the truths of a science, which merely forms an objectual (or ontological) unity. Thus, one connects the truths that concern, as Husserl liked to say, the same empirical genus. Such sciences can be called concrete sciences or ontological sciences. As Husserl mentions,30 examples of this second group of sciences are history, geography and natural history. Since the explanation by principles in these sciences could take us to very different and heterogeneous theoretical sciences, Husserl says31 that the unity of such sciences is extra-essential. Husserl underlines32 that the abstract or nomological sciences are the fundamental ones, from which the concrete sciences have to extract all what makes them a science, i.e., everything theoretical. Of course, remarks Husserl,33 for the concrete sciences it is sufcient to adhere the objectual with which they are concerned to the lowest laws of the nomological sciences and indicate in very general terms the route of their possible explanation, since the reduction to principles and the construction of explanatory theories is the concern only of the nomological sciences. Although Husserl very well knows that the theoretical interest is not the only decisive one, he makes it clear34 that where the theoretical interest prevails, the individual and the empirical connection are of no value, or only as a mere reference point for the construction of the general theory. Thus, adds Husserl,35 for a theoretical physicist, e.g., stars are simply examples of gravitational masses. At the end of 64 Husserl considers a second sort of extra-essential principle of scientic unity, namely, the fundamental norm or value that gives its unity to a normative discipline. In all such disciplines, it is the fundamental norm, which brings together the truths of the discipline, and constitutes the unity of the region. But, as already shown in Chapter II of the Prolegomena,
27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35

Ibid., p. 236. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid., pp. 236237. Ibid., p. 237. Ibid. Ibid., p. 238. Ibid.

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normative disciplines are dependent on theoretical ones, especially, on the theoretical in the strict sense of nomological, since the former extract from the latter all what is essential for them to be a science. In 65 Husserl considers conditions of possibility of any science in general or, more precisely, of theory in general, since scientic knowledge can only be obtained by means of a theory in the strict sense of a nomological science. Moreover, Husserl remarks36 that since theories consist of truths deductively connected, the conditions of possibility of truths in general and of the deductive unity in general reduce to the conditions of possibility of theories. Husserl is clearly conscious37 of the afnity of the problem under consideration with Kants problem of the conditions of possibility of experience, and correctly considers it a generalization of the Kantian problem. First of all, Husserl acknowledges38 the existence of subjective conditions of possibility of a theory, which are really conditions of possibility of theoretical knowledge in general, or even of knowledge in general for any human being. Such subjective conditions can be real or ideal. Real conditions, e.g., causal conditions of our thought, do not interest Husserl at all. Ideal conditions can be noetic, i.e., based a priori on the ideal of knowledge as such, without considering any empirical aspect of human knowledge; or logical, which Husserl describes somewhat misleadingly as based exclusively on the content of knowledge. With respect to the noeticor, more explicitly, ideal subjectiveconditions, it is clear that the thinking subjects should have the capacity to apprehend the truth of propositions and the relation of deductive foundation between truths and, in particular, between truths or laws and more general laws that provide their explanatory foundation. With respect to the logical (or ideal objective) conditionswhich are Husserls main concern hereit is clear that truths, and especially, laws, foundations and principles are what they are with total independence of their being apprehended by anyone. It is not the case that they are valid because we can have evidence of them, but we can have evidence of them because they are valid. Thus, as Husserl stresses, the a priori laws that belong to truth as such, to a deduction as such, to a theory as such,...express ideal conditions of possibility of knowledge in general, respectively, of deductive knowledge and of theoretical knowledge in general, and such conditions are exclusively based on the content of knowledge.39 These a priori conditions of knowledge are by no means subjective but objective conditions of the possibility of knowledge, since they can be considered with complete independence of any thinking subject. In their meaning content such laws are not concerned with knowledge, judgment or inference, but with truth, proposition and consequence, i.e., with the objective content independent of any activity of knowledge of a thinking subject.
36 37 38 39

Ibid. 65, p. 239. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid., p. 240.

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This important distinction between ideal noetic conditions of possiblity of the knower and ideal logical conditions of possibility of truth and theories, which are completely independent of any knowing subject, and the recognition of the importance of both, have puzzled interpreters of Husserl. On the one hand, he acknowledges the legitimacy of transcendental investigations of the ideal conditions of the knowing subject, with which a great part of his later research is concerned, and which has some afnities with the Kantian and neoKantian program. On the other hand, Husserl clearly propounds a Platonism of truth and meaning, with clear afnities to Bolzano and Frege. As we will see below, his views on mathematics are also those of (a sort of) Platonism, though a more rened one than Freges and, contrary to the latters, a non reductionist Platonism.40 At the beginning of 66 Husserl states41 that the question about the ideal conditions of possibility of knowledge brings to the fore laws based on categorial concepts totally alien to any knowing subject. It is precisely these laws and the categorial concepts on which they are based that constitutes the objective-ideal conditions of possibility of a theory in general, where theory is understoodas well as truth and lawas an ideal content of possible knowledge. Thus, for Husserl42 truth is an ideal identical content corresponding to a multiplicity of acts of knowledge, whereas a theory is also an ideal identical content, although a complex one formed from purely ideal blocks, e.g., truths connected by the relation of foundation and consequence, and which corresponds to a multiplicity of complexes of individual acts of knowledge. In this objective sense the conditions of possibility of a theory whatsoever concern the possibility of the objects conceptually conceived and, thus, the possible validity or substantiality, as Husserl says,43 of the concept under which the object falls. Moreover, Husserl adds44 that the evident knowledge of any determined theory guarantees the objectual possibility or, in Husserls terminology, the substantiality of a theory in general, i.e., the non-voidness of its concept.
There has been a decades long discussion on whether after his transcendental turn of 1907 Husserl abandoned the Platonism of LU, and whether his transcedental phenomenology is more compatible with intuitionism or some sort of constructivism than with Platonism. Certainly, the supercial similarity with Kantian views supports such an interpretation, and constructivism not only is not incompatible with the usual rendering of Husserls transcendental phenomenology, but at rst sight seems to be the natural philosophy of mathematics of a phenomenologist. Nonetheless, as a matter of fact, in his writings on mathematics and logicaside from possible isolated remarks as the one referred to in the Appendix belowafter the transcendental turn Husserl propounded essentially the same views on an objective but not ontological logic and a formal ontological Platonist mathematics as in LU. Moreover, Husserl never seemed to have retracted of his classication of Kants views in Chapter VII of LU I as a sort of specic relativism. Hence, one should not press too much the afnities between Husserls and Kants transcendental philosophies, and beware of assessing Husserls views as a foundation of Brouwers Fichtean mathematical subject.
41 42 43 44 40

Ibid., 66, p. 241. See ibid., p. 242. Ibid. Ibid, pp. 242243.

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Husserl is interested in determining the primitive concepts on which the concept of a theory in general is founded. Moreover, he wants to discover the pure laws, based on such primitive concepts, which confer unity to any theory, i.e., the laws belonging to any theory as such, and which determine a priori the possible variations or sorts of theories. Husserl stresses,45 that since such concepts and ideal laws constitute the idea of a theory in general and, thus, delimit its possibility, any presumed theory can be a theory only if it can be subsumed under such concepts and ideal laws. Thus, as Husserl points out,46 to logically justify a given theory one has to refer it to those concepts and laws which ideally constitute any theory whatsoever, and which deductively and a priori regulate any specialization of the idea of theory in its possible types. Hence, Husserl will investigate the a priori theoretical and nomological science concerned with the ideal essence of science in general, i.e., he will study the theory of all theories, the science of all sciences.

Meaning categories and formation rules The rst task of Husserls theory of all theories is the clarication of the primitive concepts that make possible a theoretical nexus, i.e., the concepts constitutive of the theoretical unity and those which are nomologically connected with them. In some sense, Husserl says, we have to deal here with second order concepts, i.e., ...concepts of concepts and of other ideal unities.47 Moreover, Husserl stresses48 that theories are deductive connections of propositions, which are themselves nothing else than connections of a determined form between concepts. As Husserl puts it in his extremely valuable but relatively recently published Einleitung in die Logik und Erkenntnistheorie,49 the whole theoretical content of science is from top to bottom meanings. But sciences and theories in general are structured in propositions, which are closed unities of meaning. Thus, Husserl adds50 that by replacing the constitutive parts of a theory by indeterminates we obtain the form of the theory. In this way are obtained also the concepts of concept, proposition and truth. Moreover, to this group belong the concepts of the elementary forms of connection so important for the deductive unity of propositions, e.g., the conjunctive, disjunctive and hypothetical connections of propositions, which play such a decisive role in the formation of new

45 46 47 48 49

Ibid., p. 243. Ibid. Ibid., 67, p. 244. Ibid., pp. 244245.

Einleitung in die Logik und Erkenntnistheorie, - from now on ELE -, p. 70, Husserliana XXIV, 1984.
50

LU I, p. 245.

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propositions. Included here are also the forms of glueing together the most basic unities of meaning to form elementary propositions, which, as Husserl states,51 brings us to the different forms of subject and predicate, to the forms of conjunctive and disjunctive binding at the sub-propositional level, and even to the forms of plurals. Husserl underscores52 that there are xed laws governing the complications formed iteratively, by means of which an innite multiplicity of new forms is generated from the primitive forms. Hence, on the basis of a nite and meager input, by means of these laws (or rules) for the formation of propositions, a whole overview of the innite multiplicity of forms of propositions is possible. Both in the Fourth Logical Investigation of the second volume of Logische Untersuchungen53 as well as in Einleitung in die Logik und Ekenntnistheorie54 (and elsewhere55) Husserl makes explicit the relation between this rst level of logic, which studies the forms of meaning that belong a priori to propositions independently of truth and falsity, and a sort of logico-grammatical nucleus of natural languages. Thus, this morphology of meanings is also called by Husserl in both works pure grammar, and constitutes, according to Husserl, a common nucleus of logico-linguistic universals present in all languages, in contrast to their multiple empirical diversity not only with respect to the actual vocabulary but with respect to many grammatical forms and rules. As Husserl puts it in Einleitung in die Logik und Erkenntnistheorie,56 the elements of meaning can only be ordered and brought together in some determined ways so as to produce a complex unitary meaning. Thus, in the sphere of meanings there are laws which regulate the composition of meanings and in this way separate sense from nonsense, and which are presupposed by any consideration of the truth or falsity of propositions. On the other hand, Husserl remarks57 that in nomic connection with the aforementioned primitive concepts, the meaning categories, there are other correlative concepts, like those of set, state of affairs, plurality, cardinal number, ordinal number, relation, connection, part and whole. (As stressed in Einleitung in die Logik und Erkenntnistheorie,58 the notion of whole is different from that of set and irreducible to it.) These concepts are the objectual formal categories, or, better, formal ontological categories since they are the primitive concepts of mathematics conceived as formal ontology59 and are based on the notion of object. In both cases we have concepts which are totally
51 52 53 54 55

Ibid. Ibid. LU II, U. IV. ELE, pp. 7172.

See, e.g., Formale und transzendentale Logikfrom now on FTL, 1929, Husserliana XVII, 1974, as well as Logik und allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie, Husserliana XXX, 1996. ELE, pp. 7273. LU I, p. 245. ELE, p. 78. See also FTL, p. 82. See on this point FTL, 2327.

56 57 58 59

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independent of any particular knowledge content, and under which have to be subsumed all concepts, propositions, objects, states of affairs, etc. present in any thought activity. Thus, it is a primary task of logic to x all such meaning and formal ontological categories, and clarify their nature. It should be perfectly clear that what Husserl has in mind when considering the meaning categories and the laws of their iterative complications to form complex propositions of any nite degree of complexity is nothing else than what Carnap three and a half decades laterwithout mentioning Husserlcalled rules of formation60 and is now current stuff in rigorous logic books. But Husserls scope is larger, since it embraces also subpropositional meanings, and points to a somewhat parallel treatment of natural language. This will become much clearer in the Fourth Logical Investigation, where he develops the notion of a pure logical grammar based on similar notions but applied to natural language. Thus, Husserl is also a forerunner of the categorial grammar current nowadays. It is appropriate to call this rst level of Husserls theory of theories the logico-grammatical level.

Logic, mathematics and the mathesis universalis The second group of problems considered by Husserl concerns the laws based on those two sorts of categorial concepts which, instead of studying the possible forms of complexions and modication of theoretical units, studies the objectual validity of the forms thus originated, and on the objectual side, the existence or non-existence of the objects in general, the states of affairs, sets, numbers etc.61 These laws which deal with meanings and objects in the most general way possiblethe logico-categorialconstitute theories. Thus, we have, on the side of meanings, the different theories of inference, of which the traditional syllogistic is just an example among others, and on the objectual side, we have, e.g., number theory, which is based on the formal-ontological category of number. The whole group of laws belonging to the different formal-syntactical and formal-ontological theories are based on a small group of primitive (or fundamental) laws which have their origin in the categorial concepts. On this issue, it should be stated, rstly, that on the logical side Husserl is dealing here with the logical laws of propositional and predicate logic, and, in general, with all possible logical laws, which contrary to the laws of the rst level, protect against formal countersense, not against nonsense. In Einleitung in die Logik und Erkenntnistheorie62 Husserl makes it clear that propositional

60 Die Logische Syntax der Sprache, 1934, expanded English version, 1937, reprint 2003, 1, p. 2, 2, p. 4. 61 62

See LU I, 68, p. 247. ELE, pp. 435436.

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and predicate logic are the most basic of these theories, although he also remarks63 that the complete development of the most basic theories will probably require the use of inference forms from less basic theories of inference. Hence, the constitution of these theories is not simply hierarchical. On the other hand, Husserl makes it clear that formal ontology includes all formal mathematics, i.e., all mathematics with the exception of physical geometry. Thus, as Husserl states in Einleitung in die Logik und Erkenntnistheorie,64 mathematics includes among others the pure doctrine of cardinal numbers and that of ordinal numbers, combinatorics, all the disciplines of mathematical analysis, including, e.g., the theory of functions, number theory, algebra, and both the doctrine of Euclidean multiplicities and that of nonEuclidean multiplicities in general, thus, as he observes,65 the whole realm of what Felix Klein had called arithmetical mathematics. Moreover, as mentioned above,66 even a (still not developed) theory of parts and wholes, a mereology, should be included in this broad notion of formal-ontological mathematics. In view of the homogeneity of these categorial concepts an all embracing theory is constituted of which the aforementioned theories are relatively closed components. In virtue of the formal generality of this all embracing theory of all possible meanings and all possible objects, each and every scientic theory has to be subsumed under it in order to be valid. As Husserl stresses,67 this does not mean that each singular theory presupposes each of these laws as foundation of its possibility and validity. It is simply that those formal theories and categorial laws form the common all embracing ground, of which each particular valid theory extracts the ideal foundations of its substantiality in virtue of its form.68 The validity of a theory can be established only in virtue of its form and on the basis of this all-embracing ground as an ultimate foundation. Moreover, as Husserl stresses,69 since valid theories are complex unities of interconnected truths, it is clear that the laws that concern both the concept of truth and the possibility of singular deductive connections of such and such forms should be included here. On this last point, there is some unclarity in the exposition of the Prolegomena, not only because the intention is syntactic but the vocabulary semantic, but also because the concept of truth, which is clearly semantic, is thrown into the mix. In Formale und transzendentale Logik70 Husserl makes it clear that this second level of the logico-mathematical building is, on the logical side, a purely syntactical one. It is the study of theories of inference and
63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70

Ibid., pp. 436437. Ibid., pp. 7071. Ibid. p. 55. See above, footnote 39. See on this issue, e.g., ELE, pp. 5960 and LU I, 68, pp. 247248. See ELE, p. 61 and LU I, 68, p. 248. LU I, 68, p. 248. FTL, p. 70.

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derivability from fundamental laws, the level of deducibility and noncontradiction, without any concern for truth or other related concepts. It is the level much later called by Carnap71once more, without any reference to Husserlthe level of logical syntax, i.e., the level of transformation rules. Husserl, however, did not ignore the semantic side of logic. Precisely in Formale und transzendentale Logik72 Husserl adds a new stratum to his conception of logic, namely, a logic of truth built immediately on the syntactical theory of deduction. This stratum would be obtained from the stratum of logical deduction by the introduction of the concept of truth and related semantical concepts, together with the laws that govern them. Thus, even thoughcontrary to the rst two strata of logicHusserl said very little about the logic of truth, also on this point is he a forerunner of later developments by Tarski, Carnap and others. Moreover, as Husserl underscores,73 when we take into account the semantic side, the logic of truth, it becomes clear that all logical statements presuppose a region of individuals, a world of individuals, in which they are valid. Thus, Husserls conception of logic, no matter how formal and devoid of any content, is not that of a so called free logic, but tends to coincide also in this sense with our now classical mathematical logic.74

The theory of all theories As Husserl mentions,75 the former level of research was sufcient to x the conditions of possibility of any theory in general. But this points to a still higher level of study, namely, to the a priori investigation of all formsor sortsof theories and the corresponding laws governing their relations. Thus originates the possibility of a still more embracing theory, which studies the concepts and essential laws constitutive of the concept of theory, and which proceeds to differentiate this notion, and study, not the possibility of a particular given theoryas in the former levelbut a priori the possible theories. Hence, on the basis of the former levels investigation, we are now able to consider the multiple pure forms of theories, whose substantiality, i.e., objectual possibility, has already been established. An especially decisive aspect of this new level is the study of the relations between forms of theories. It will be possible not only to obtain the possible forms of theories, but to have an overview of their nomological nexus and, thus, of the possible transformations of one of these forms into another through variation of some
71 72 73 74

See footnote 40 above. FTL, pp. 6061, 7071. Ibid. pp. 212213.

It should be pointed out, however, that in Alte und neue Logik: Vorlesungen 1908/09, pp. 230 232, Husserl extends his notion of logic in order to include the treatment of logical modalities, thus, of modal logic, and both thereinp. 230and already in LU Isee 10 belowto include the theory of probability.
75

LU I, 69, p. 248.

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fundamental aspects. Moreover, adds Husserl,76 if not in general, at least for the theory of forms of some determined sorts or, in Husserls terminology, genres there will be general propositions that will govern not only the separate development of the forms of theories, but especially the connection between the forms of theories and their transformations, according to laws, into others. As Husserl clearly underlines,77 the propositions with which we are here concerned are of a different nature than the axioms and theorems of the former level (e.g., of syllogistics or arithmetic). They are clearly of a very abstract metamathematical level, and their deduction can only be based on the nature of such forms of theories, since at this level there are no axioms properly. Furthermore, Husserl stresses78 that the subsumption of a theory under its form, as done in the former level, has a great methodological importance, since the expansion of the deductive and theoretical realm enhances the vitality of the theoretical research and contributes to the richness and fecundity of its methods. Thus, adds Husserl,79 the solution of problems originated in a given discipline can, under determined circumstances, receive some methodological help by a return to its category type, i.e., to the form of the theory, and from this eventually through a transition, even to a more embracing form and its laws. Finally, it should be briey mentioned that in Formale und transzendentale Logik80 and elsewhere Husserl related his theory of all theories with Hilberts philosophy of mathematics. Specically, Husserl went so far as to claim a sort of completeness of the theory of all theories, which seemed to conate deductive (or syntactic) completeness with semantic completeness.81 Just recently the interpretation of Husserls views on completeness has been the focus of some important contributions.82 However, it would take us too far to adequately discuss here this interesting issue, especially since a revised version of Husserls lectures on completeness has been recently published by Elisabeth Schuhmann and the late Karl Schuhmann.83
76 77 78 79 80

Ibid., p. 249. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid.

FTL, pp. 98102. See also Appendixes VI, VII, VIII and X of the Husserliana edition of Philosophie der Arithmetik.

81

In FTL, p. 100 there are two formulations of the completeness requirement, which seem to point to what we now call semantic and deductive completeness. In any case, these two notions were not del and Tarski mentioned in the refclearly differentiated until the epoch-making papers of Go erences. See on this issue the interesting paper by Ulrich Majer included in the references, and especially the detailed analyses by Jairo J. da Silva in Husserls Two Notions of Completeness and in The Many Senses of Completeness, which reject the rendering of the conation of semantic and deductive completeness. ttinger See Elisabeth Schumann and Karl Scuhmanns Husserls Manuskripte zu seinem Go Doppelvortrag von 1901.

82

83

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Husserls theory of manifolds At the beginning of 70 Husserl states84 that the mathematical theory of manifolds current in his daythat of the tradition of Riemann, Helmoltz, Klein, Lie and othersis a correlative partial realization of his ideal of a theory of (deductive) theories, even though mathematicians have not clearly grasped the nature of this new discipline and have not risen to the highest abstraction of an all embracing theory. Thus, as Husserl underlines: The objectual correlate of the notion of a determined possible theory in virtue of its form is the notion of a region of possible knowledge to be governed by means of a theory of such a form.85 Following the mathematicians usage, Husserl calls such a region a manifold. On this point, it should be clear from Husserls remarks in Einleitung in die Logik und Erkenntnistheorie86 that for him a manifold is a collection or class of objects thought in complete indetermination and generality, together with some connections between the objects for which some given laws are valid. Moreover, in Logische Untersuchungen he stresses,87 that the region ...is uniquely and exclusively determined by being under a theory of that form, i.e., by being possible for its objects some connections which obey certain fundamental laws of such and such determined form, which is what is decisive here, since the objects are completely indeterminate with respect to their material nature. They are, says Husserl, neither directly determined as individual or specic singularities, nor indirectly by means of their material types or genres, but only by means of the forms of their respective connections.88 Moreover, adds Husserl89 [such connections] are as indeterminate in their content as their objects; [since] only their form is determined by means of the forms of the basic laws assumed to be valid for them. Moreover, these laws determine both the form of the region and the form of the theory to be built. As an example, Husserl mentions90 that in the doctrine of manifolds the sign + is not the addition sign for numbers, but the sign for any connection for which are valid laws of the form a + b = b + a. The conceptual objects of the multiplicity make possible those fundamental operations and others compatible with them, and in this way completely determine the manifold. This last point is more explicitly expressed in Einleitung in die Logik und Erkenntnistheorie91 by considering three possible interpretations of a + b = b + a, namely, the arithmetical one, the set-theoretic one with + rendered as the set-theoretic union, and the geometrical one with + rendered as the juxtaposition of straight lines. More
84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91

LU I, 70, p. 250. Ibid. ELE, p. 88. LU I, p. 250. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid., p. 251. See also FTL, p. 105. ELE, p. 85.

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generally, says Husserl,92 if you have, e.g., a collection of number-theoretic axioms, and ...in a completely different region [of mathematics] a collection of axioms is valid, which completely coincides in its form with the collection of arithmetical principles, ...then...to every number-theoretical proposition there corresponds a proposition in the new region and viceversa, and thus, not only the principles but also their consequences, inferences, proofs and theories have the same form, i.e., they are equiform. Thus, it is not necessary to make the deduction twice. As soon as one acknowledges the equiformity of the principles, one knows a priori that everything has also to be equiform. In this way, as Husserl adds,93 one can emancipate the form of a mathematical theory from the objects governed by the theory. Thus, the mathematical theory becomes the theory of an indeterminate region of objects for which the laws of the theory are valid. It is unnecessary to stress here how mathematics in the twentieth century developed in the direction pointed at in 1900 by Husserl. Universal algebra and general topology are clearly partial realizations of the Husserlian ideal. As Husserl puts it: The most general notion of a doctrine of manifolds is that of a science which denitely forms the essential types of possible theories (respectively, regions) and studies the nomic relations between them.94 Hence, as Husserl underlines,95 any actual theory is really a specialization or singularization of its corresponding form of theory, and any theoretical region of knowledge is simply a singular multiplicity. Thus, if in the theory of manifolds one develops completely the formal theory concerned, then one has completed all theoretical work for the structuring of the actual theories of the same form. In Einleitung in die Logik und Erkenntnistheorie,96 Husserl considers more explicitly the possibility of combining in a system different theories to obtain a complex but compatible manifold. More generally, beginning with the formal type of a mathematical structure, one can modify the forms so as to make it possible to combine and connect by means of laws different possible multiplicities. It should be clear that Husserl once more is anticipating future developments in mathematics, namely, the possibility of combining different but compatible mathematical structures to obtain a complex mathematical manifold. Topological groups are a beautiful example of what Husserl has here in mind. Husserl stresses97 that it is not possible to really understand the mathematical method without considering the doctrine of manifolds, and the subsumtion of theories under their most embracing forms. As an example of this point of view, Husserl mentions Riemanns doctrine of manifolds, which is a
92 93 94 95 96

Ibid. Ibid. See LU I, p. 251. Ibid.

ttinger Doppelvortrag von 1901, ELE, pp. 8687. See also Husserls Manuskripte zu seinem Go p. 91. LU, p. 251.

97

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generalization of geometrical theory. More generally, when Husserl speaks of a generalization of geometrical theory he refers to Riemanns doctrine of n-dimensional manifolds, whether the manifold is Euclidean or not, as well as to Grassmanns and others related theories. On this point, Husserl refers also to Lies doctrine of transformation groups and to the investigations of his friend Georg Cantor.98 It is, however, Riemanns pioneering notion of manifold which seems to have exerted the greatest inuence on Husserls views on mathematics. It seems appropriate to say a few words about Riemanns revolutionary notion of a mathematical manifold.

On Riemanns notion of a manifold ber die At the very beginning of his duly famous inaugural lecture U Hypothesen, welche der Geometrie zugrunde liegen, Riemann observes99 that geometry has traditionally taken the concept of space and the most basic concepts for the constructions in space as given. Moreover, he adds100 that neither mathematicians nor philosophers were capable of eliminating the obscurities related to such concepts because they lacked the general concept of a multiply extended magnitude, under which spatial magnitudes are to be subsumed. Riemanns main task is to obtain the concept of a multiply extended magnitude from general concepts of magnitude. An important consequence of this procedure is that a multiply extended magnitude is capable of different measuring relations, i.e., measuring (or metrical) relations are not intrinsic to the notion of a multiply extended magnitude. Physical space, i.e., the space of our physical world, is only a special case of a three-fold extended magnitude. Hence, it follows that the (physico)geometrical statements are in no way derivable from the general concepts of magnitude, and that those properties which distinguish physical space from other three-fold extended magnitudes can be obtained only from experience. Thus, the facts from which the metrical relations of space are determined are, as any fact, not necessary, but possess only empirical certainty. Such assertions of Riemann constitute a really deep conceptual revolution, mathematically and philosophically deeper than the mere discovery of the two main sorts of non-Euclidean geometries by Gau, Bolyai and Lobachevsky, on the one hand, by Riemann himself, on the other hand. Riemanns remarks are an important breakthrough, a rupture with the tradition both of geometers who, even in the face of non-Euclidean geometry, still saw these new geometries as mere conceptual objects, and with the powerful Kantian tradition which gave them its philosophical foundation. But there is in Riemanns
98

See ibid., p. 252. To give an idea of this inuence, it should be mentioned that in SAG Husserl mentions Cantor on pp. 24, 40, 8284, 95, 145, 240, 244 and 413; Grasssmann on pp. 242, 245, 253, 256, 391, 396 and 401; Klein on p. 397; Lie on pp. 397 and 412; Helmholtz on p. 160; and Riemann on pp. 95, 250, 256, 323324, 329, 330, 337344, 347, 406, 407, 409 and 411413. 99 Uber die Hypothesen, welche der Geometrie zugrunde liegen, p. 1.
100

Ibid.

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epoch-making monograph a more general breakthrough with the Kantian doctrine of space. In the Transcendental Aesthetics of the Kritik der reinen Vernunft,101 Kant had argued for the intuiveas against the conceptualnature of space that concepts are such that they cannot contain in themselves, as space does, innitely many parts of exactly the same nature, e.g., obtained by division of any spatial magnitude. Concepts are, for Kant, such that they can be present, as what Kant called representations, in a nite or innite variety of cases, like the concept of horse is present in our representation of any given horse, or the concept of angel is present in our representation of any angel, but they cannot contain in themselves an innite multiplicity of parts of the same nature. However, Riemann states in his monograph102 that concepts of magnitude are possible only when there is a general concept which admits of different individuations (or, as he calls them, modes of determination). These individuations are of two sorts, depending on the nature of the general concept. The individuation can be such that the transit from an individual to another is a continuous one, as in the case of space, or it can be a discrete one, as in the case of horse, angel or natural number. In the rst case, the individua constitute a continuous manifold, in the second case a discrete manifold. In the rst case the individua are called points, in the second they are called elements. Clearly demarcated parts of a manifold are called by Riemann quanta, and their comparison is obtained, in the case of discrete manifolds, by means of counting, and in the case of continuous manifolds, by means of measurement. Here we have a very general philosophical distinction between discrete and continuous manifolds, which seems as inclusive as Kants distinction between concepts and intuitions, and, for the sake of comparisons, corresponds in some sense to it. (Of course, Kant, who was so limited by traditional logico-philosophical distinctions, could not even foresee the scope of Riemanns use of the term concept.) But what is decisive in Riemanns distinction is not only its generality, but the fact that in both sorts of manifold we are dealing with concepts. The notion of a continuous magnitude, which in Riemanns work is the general scheme on which his conception of a multiply extended manifold is founded, is not an intuition but a concept. Such a view clearly runs counter to Kants argument on behalf of the a priori nature of space (and time) already alluded to above, according to which space (and time also) is primarily an intuition, not a concept, since the notion of space contains in itself already an innity of individua such that the individua can be divided indenitely without obtaining anything else than individuals of exactly the same nature, whereas in the case of concepts such an innite division which would preserve the nature of the notion would be impossible. (Parts of horses are not horses, although the concept of horse is present in a potentially innite multiplicity of concrete horses.) Contrary to the Kantian tradition, Riemann considers that continuous manifolds are of the same conceptual nature as the more common
101 102

Kritik der reinen Vernunft, B, p. 40. ber die Hypothesen, welche der Geometrie zugrunde liegen, p. 3. U

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discrete ones. Thus, since continuous manifolds are present in so many parts of mathematicswhereas discrete ones in a very general form are present in its remaining parts, there is no place for intuition in mathematics. Pure mathematics is a purely conceptual discipline. Hence, it is no mystery that, as stated at the very beginning of the monograph103 and repeated many times throughout it, the nature of physical space has to be determined by empirical means. Moreover, it should be mentioned that Riemann also asserts104 that for the doctrine of extended manifolds nothing is presupposed which is not already contained in the concepts. Thus, according to a popular denition of analyticity, which comes from Kant and even from Leibniz, the doctrine of extended manifolds deals exclusively with purely analytic statements. Hence, the blow on the Kantian tradition is also n-fold. It is unnecessary to discuss further Riemanns extraordinary monograph. Its decisive importance for the development of the theory of functions, its groundwork for the development of topology and of differential geometry are well documented, as is also the importance of his views for physics, which have been fully appreciated only after the development of general relativity.105 Because of his mathematical formation under Karl Weierstrass and his philosophical genius, Husserl was one of the philosophersif not the philosopherwho better appreciated the importance of Riemanns notion of manifold for mathematics, as well as the contributions of others, especially Klein and Lie, and developed a view of the nature of mathematics which in some sense anticipated by almost half a century the views of the Bourbaki school.106 For the sake of completeness, a few words should be said about the Bourbakian view of mathematics.

A brief note on Bourbakis view of mathematics The school of mostly French mathematicians under the cticious name of Nicholas Bourbaki developed since the late 1930s a whole systematization of
103 104 105

Ibid., p. 1. Ibid., p. 4.

For a much more detailed treatment of Riemanns views, there are two excellent works, namely, the very valuable book by Erhard Scholz Geschichte des Mannigfaltigkeitsbegriffs von and Roberto Torrettis encyclopedic Philosophy of Geometry from Riemann bis Poincare . Riemann to Poincare It should be pointed out here that although Husserl rejected since about 1890 Kants views on the synthetic a priori nature of three dimensional Euclidean space, he considered, however, that there are some synthetic a priori features of intuitive space. On this point, he clearly differed from Riemann, whose views did not leave room for any intuitive space. For a beautiful treatment of space, including a rst approach to Husserls views and their relation to the Riemann-Einsteinian conception, see Rudolf Carnaps dissertation Der Raum. Nonetheless, Husserls views on the apriority of space are more sophisticated than Carnaps, since it is not limited to the topological properties but also includes the afne (and projective properties), as well as some basic metric properties related to the notion of congruence. See on this issue the present authors forthcoming review of Husserls Alte und neue Logik; Vorlesungen 1908/09.
106

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mathematics, which has been considered paradigmatic by twentieth century mathematicians. Based on the tradition of set-theoretical foundations dominant in most of that century, they offered a view of mathematics as a theory of structures. For (the collective mathematician) Nicholas Bourbaki, mathematics is in some sense a hierarchy of structures.107 First of all, there are at least three basic sorts of (set-theoretic) mathematical structures, which he calls108 mother-structures, namely, algebraic structures, which are determined by at least one law of composition,109 order structures and topological structures. Each of these sorts of structures includes a great diversity of mathematical structures. Thus, one has to distinguish between the most general structure of each sort and the remaining structures of the sort, obtained by the addition of new axioms,110 e.g., an order structure can be enriched to obtain a linearly ordered structure, by adding an axiom that states that all members of the universe of the structure are comparable, or well-ordered structures, by adding that each non-empty set of members of the universe has a rst member.111 As clearly shown by way of examples somewhat similar to that given by Husserl in Einleitung in die Logik und Erkenntnistheorie mentioned above,112 very different mathematical structures fall under the same axioms.113 Apart from those structures that are exclusively algebraic, or exclusively order or exclusively topological structures, there are many mixed (or multiple) structures, which contain two or more of the mother-structures combined by one or more axioms which connect the different component structures.114 Of course, topological algebra is a clear example of an area of mathematics in which such mixed structures are present. Thus, as Bourbaki clearly states,115 in this area there are one or more (algebraic) laws of composition together with a topology and connected by the condition that the algebraic operations be continuous functions with respect to the topology under consideration. Moreover, not two but the three sorts of mathematical structures can be present in a mixed structure. As a matter of fact, the more familiar and concrete structures, like the structure of the real numbers, are mixed structures. Of course, in the case of these familiar structures we are not considering anymore abstract structures, in which the members of the uni-

107 108 109 110 111

See The Architecture of Mathematics, p. 228. Ibid. See ibid., p. 226. See ibid., p. 228.

Of course, if you add the axiom for well-ordered sets to the order axioms, you obtain the comparability of all members of the structure by considering all sets of pairs and, thus, do not need any comparability axiom. See above, footnote 66. See The Architecture of Mathematics, pp. 224225, 226227. See ibid., p. 229. Ibid.

112 113 114 115

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verses under consideration are indeterminate, but more particular entities with, as Bourbaki says, a more denitely characterized individuality.116 As Bourbaki underscores in a footnote,117 in a strict sense, we should have to consider higher sorts of structures in what could be called a hierarchy of types, namely, structures in which the relations do not apply to the members of the universe but to subsets of the universe or even to sets of sets of higher type. For our purpose, however, it is sufcient with what has been said.118 The fact of the matter is that Bourbakis conception of mathematics is very similar to that of Husserl. The main difference lies in the priviledged position occupied by the notion of set in Bourbakis conception, a status that has been questioned in the last decades by the category theorists. The mother-structures play in Bourbakis conception the same role played in Husserls by the most general structures based on the formal ontological categories. Thus, set theory, number theory, mereology and others would play the role of the mother-structures in Husserls conception. There are at least three reasons that could be used against the priviledged status of set theory and, thus, that favor Husserl against Bourbaki. The rst one is that, as Bourbaki himself has stated,119 there are results in number theory that resist the classication under any of the known structures. The second argument is that, if you include a sort of mereology as a mathematical discipline, as Husserl wanted, its (non-articial) reduction to set theory could be a problem. But by far the most important argument is that the notion of set can also be dened both in the theory of categories, as shown in any textbook of category theory,120 and as a special case of the notion of relation.121 Thus, the priviledged status of set theory seems unjustied. What seems more natural is that there are some basic very abstract mathematical notions, which could somewhat articiallyand due to their abstract naturebe interdenable, without there being one more fundamental than the other, and that such notions are the cornerstones of the whole of mathematics in the way described by Husserl. Another point of discrepancy between Husserl and Bourbaki concerns the relation between mathematics and logic. For Bourbaki, logic seems to have only a subsidiary role as the language of mathematics.122 It seems unnecessary,
116 117 118

Ibid. Ibid., p. 226.

For a much more complete exposition of Bourbakis conception of mathematics, see Chapter 1 le ments des Mathe matiques: The orie des Ensembles. and especially Chapter 4 of his E The Architecture of Mathematics, p. 229. See, e.g., Saunders Mac Lanes Categories for the Working Mathematician.

119 120 121

See, e.g., Hartry Fields, Realism, Mathematics and Modality, pp. 2021, as well as Saunders Mac Lanes Mathematics: Form and Function, pp. 359 and 407. Indeed, as Philippe de Rouilhan reminded me after reading a preliminary version of this paper, already John von Neumann pointed out in 1925 to the possible denition of sets in terms of functions. Functions and relations are, on the other hand, interdenable, as shown by combining the set theoretic approach with Freges.

122

On this issue, see Bourbakis Foundations of Mathematics for the Working Mathematician, pp. 12.

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however, to dwell on this issue here, especially since Bourbakis comments on logic are very sparse.

The division of labor: mathematicians and philosophers The exposition of Husserls philosophy of mathematics as presented in Logische Untersuchungen and elsewhere has been essentially completed. In the remaining sections of Chapter XI Husserl adds a few footnotes to the theory. In 71, Husserl states123 that to tackle the difcult problems facing the development of his program a division of labour between mathematicians and philosophers has to be implemented. Thus, the construction of the theories and the rigorous solution of all formal problems remains in the domain of mathematicians. More specically, Husserl makes clear his support of the work of mathematicians who have developed new sorts of logical inference unknown to traditional logic. Hence, it is not the mathematician who crosses the frontiers of his own eld when he produces such results, but the philosopher when he dares to reject them, since, as Husserl clearly states,124 the mathematical treatment of logic is the only scientic one, and also the only one that could bring a completion to the task of searching for logical forms of inference and give us a global view of all the possible problems and all the possible forms of solution. Moreover, the development of all theories properly speaking is the task of the mathematician. Although Husserl does not mention any specic name, due to his acquaintance with the works of Frege and der, Husserl seems here to be applauding their logico-mathematical Schro endeavors and defending them from the critiques of the traditional philosopher-logicians of his time. On this issue, it should be mentioned that in Einleitung in die Logik und Erkenntnistheorie,125 Husserl makes very similar remarks concerning the mathematical treatment of logic and the blindness of philosophers like Windelband and even Freges teacher Lotze to appreciate it. He is, however, critical of the mathematical logicians attempts to explain the cognitive value and sense of their fundamental concepts and principles. (On this point, it should be remembered that Husserl had very sharply criticized der in his review of the latters Vorlesungen u ber die Algebra der Logik Schro 126 127 I as well as Frege, whom he seems to have considered half mathematician and half philosopher, and, thus, not philosopher enough to adequately assess the logico-mathematical developments to which he so much contributed.)

123 124 125 126

LU I, 71, p. 254. Ibid. ELE, p. 162.

der, Vorlesungen u ber die Algebra der Logik I, 1891, reprinted Besprechung von Ernst Schro tze und Rezensionen (18901910), Husserliana XXII, 1979, pp. 343. in Aufsa
127

In Philosophie der Arithmetik, Chapters VI-IX.

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215

In a similar vein, in Logische Untersuchungen Husserl asserts128 that the mathematician is only the ingenious technician who develops theories of numbers, inferences and manifolds without a clear insight in the nature of a theory in general and in the concepts and laws constitutive of that nature. Hence, the technical development done by the mathematician has to be complemented by an epistemological reection, motivated only by theoretical interests. Such is the task of the philosopher. It is the philosopher who is worried about the nature of a theory, about what makes possible any theory whatsoever. The philosophical research builds on the results of the mathematician, as well as on those of the natural scientist, and constitutes genuine theoretical knowledge. As Husserl clearly states,129 the six logical investigations of the second volume will provide a philosophical preparation for the theory of all theories by elucidating what the mathematician does not want to do and cannot do, but has to be done.130 Husserl is somewhat unjust on this point not only to Frege, but to his highly regarded Riemann and to his friend and also highly regarded mathematician Georg Cantor, both of whom had interesting philosophical insights. Nonetheless, such remarks by Husserl, the mathematician turned philosopher, are of particular importance for the assessment of Husserls views on philosophy and its relation to (rigorous) science. Contrary to most of his so-called phenomenological followers, Husserl acknowledges and applauds the investigations of mathematicians and natural scientists. But that does not mean that there is no proper realm of philosophical theorizing, as contemporary naturalists would make us believe. Philosophy is not limited to a task of merely establishing deductive relations between statements, as some logical empiricists in their heyday would have liked, nor is philosophy supposed to assume any other subsidiary role with respect to natural science, as the propounders of the so-called naturalized epistemologyor better, denaturalized epistemologywould like. Philosophy, in Husserls views, complements mathematics and natural science with a theoretical investigation into the foundations of theories and knowledge. Philosophy is foundational research in the most radical and complete way possible. This view of philosphy and its relation both to the formal and the material sciences will be maintained by Husserl throughout his whole philosophical career, independently of the small variations of emphasis. Specically, it should now be clear that there is no rupture between the rst and the second volume of Logische Untersuchungen, and that the apparent rupture between his opus magnum and his later transcendental phenomenology is more a change of emphasis than a radical one. It is a methodological radicalization which does not affect Husserls view of philosophy as foundational par excellence. Interestingly enough, it is Husserls famous (but unacknowledged) disciple Rudolf Carnap, who better assessed

128 129 130

LU I, 71, pp. 254255. Ibid., p. 256. Ibid.

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the nature of Husserls transcendental phenomenological turn: it is a methodological not a substantial procedure.131

On empirical science At the beginning of 72 Husserl writes: Since no science is possible without an explanation from its foundations, i.e., without a theory, pure logic [conceived as a theory of theories] embraces in the most general sense the ideal conditions of science in general.132 That does not mean that pure logic so conceived contains all the ideal conditions of science in general. Although as any sort of science, the theoretical content of empirical science has to be subsumed under the above mentioned laws of the mathesis universalis, empirical sciences are never reducible to their pure theories. Nonetheless, this aspect of empirical science, which embraces the somewhat complex process of knowledge in which empirical sciences originate and are modied in the course of scientic progress, also lies, stresses Husserl,133 under ideal laws, not only under empirical laws. This brings us to probability theory. As is well known, remarks Husserl,134 any theory in the empirical sciences is a supposed theory. It does not offer an explanation from evidently true laws, but only from evidently probabilistic foundational laws.135 Hence, empirical theories have only evident probability and are, thus, provisional, never denitive. Something similar happens, according to Husserl, with the facts themselves that are to be theoretically explained. It is also the task of empirical science to explain facts through laws, i.e., nomologically, from explanatory hypotheses, which we accept as probabilistic laws. But in this process, states Husserl,136 the facts do not remain completely unchanged. They are modied in the process of knowledge. Husserl considers that in the procedures of factual science rules a sort of ideal norm. When, e.g., new empirical data tend to disconrm a theory accepted with nomic probability, we usually do not infer that the foundation of the theory was false, but conclude that the theory was correct on the basis of the previous data and is correct no more. On the other hand, adds Husserl,137 we sometimes judge that a theory is not correctly founded, even though it is

131 132 133 134 135 136 137

See Der logische Aufbau der Welt, 64, p. 86. LU I, 72, p. 256. Ibid., pp. 256257. Ibid., p. 257. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid., p. 258.

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the only one adequate to the present data. (Maybe Einsteins, Bohms and others later struggles with quantum theory can be seen as an illustration of the point brought here by Husserl.) Thus, concludes Husserl,138 even in the sphere of empirical thought, where we are concerned with mere probabilities, there are ideal laws, on which is based a priori the possibility of empirical science in general [and] of the probabilistic knowledge of reality. Moreover, stresses Husserl,139 [such a] sphere of pure nomology ... is not related to the idea of theory and, more generally, to that of truth, but to the empirical unity of explanation, respectively, to the idea of probability, and builds a second important foundation of what Husserl called practical logic, and which could better be called scientic (or logical) methodology. Without trying to extend us unnecessarily, it should at least be briey mentioned here that for Husserl the explanation from foundations was an essential feature of all science. In the case of the empirical sciences, we have, on the one hand, the explanation of facts and, on the other hand, the explanation of laws from laws of a higher level. As we have mentioned elsewhere,140 the laws of higher level are called by Husserl hypotheses cum fundamento in re, since they are not simple empirical laws obtained through inductive procedures, but theoretical laws, partially based on experience, but introduced as hypotheses to serve as explanatory foundations of laws of lower level. Newtons law of gravitation is an example of this sort of laws. But explanation does not need to be a purely deductive one. As mentioned above, in the case of empirical theories it can very well be a probabilistic explanation. Thus, we can clearly see that Husserls views of empirical science anticipated by some decades discussions that dominated the philosophical scene for a substantial part of the last century in the hands of the logical empiricists, Popper and others. Moreover, an important point made by Husserl, which is particularly relevant nowadays, is that in the process of knowledge the data under consideration do not remain completely unchanged but are modied. This brief comment by Husserl could serve as the basis for multiple discussions: (i) as a rst step of a philosophical justication of current quantum theory; (ii) as the basis for a critique of empiristic philosophies which still are based on sense data as unrevisable hard facts of experience; and (iii) as the starting point of an epistemology based on already structured states of affairs as building blocks, an epistemology that with regard to mathematical knowledge Husserl developed in the Sixth Logical Investigation.

138 139 140

Ibid. Ibid.

See footnote 19 above, as well as the present authors paper The Structure of the Prolegomena.

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Appendix141 In the recent literature on Husserls views on mathematics142 the tendency already mentioned in footnote 40 to associate Husserl with different variants of constructivism, which, due to the apparent afnities of Husserls later trascendental phenomenology with Kants trascendental idealism would look very plausible, has experienced a sort of revitalization. However, as already mentioned, the fact of the matter is that both in his 1929 Formale und transzendentale Logik and other recently published courses contemporary with his trascendental turn or later,143 there is no sign of any constructivism. Husserls views on mathematics remained the same after the trascendental turn. Although this is difcult to swallow by traditional phenomenologists, it represents no problem for those like the present author, who coincide with Carnap in seeing the phenomenological reduction as a purely methodological device. Thus, Platonism survives the trascendental turn.144 In our dissertation of 1973, however, we discussed an extensive manuscript of Husserl, which we read in the Husserl Archives in Cologne, in which Husserl seriously considered constructivism. The manuscript, titled The Paradoxes and with the inscription A I 35, consists of two parts, namely, part a, dated 1912, and b, dated 1920. In the 1912 part of the manuscript Husserl is concerned with different ways to solve Russells paradoxor better: ZermeloRussellsand similar paradoxes. Husserl bases his discussion on two important points, namely: (i) Not every meaning is fulllable in a possible intuition; e.g., a round quadrangle can be thought, but cannot be intuited, there is no sensible or categorial intuition of it; (ii) One has to distinguish between different levels of language, thus, modifying a little Husserls example,145 a proposition (or name) of a proposition S is of a level immediatly higher than S. We have here the nucleus of a theory of types. As Husserl

141

This Appendix , based on the last chapter of my dissertationsee references, discusses a still unpublished manuscript of Husserl, Manuscript AI 35, which I read in the Husserl Archives in Cologne in 1971 or 1972. I hereby thank the Husserl Archives in Cologne for having allowed me to read the manuscript while I was working on my dissertation. So far as I know, Claire O. Hill is the only other Husserl scholar that has referred in printin her paper mentioned in the referencesto this valuable manuscript. See, e.g., Richard Tieszens Mathematical Intuition. The manuscripts on which is based Einleitung in die Logik und Erkenntnistheorie date from 19061907, thus, from the years of the transcendental turn. See on this issue the editorial intro nomenologie. The manuscripts on which is based Logik und duction to Husserls Die Idee der Pha allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie are of the transcendental phenomenology years

142 143

Although, as pointed out in footnote 40, constructivism is perfectly compatible with transcendental phenomenology, one cannot say that it survived the transcendental turnin the same sense in which one cannot say that a person born in 1960 survived the Second World War, because it was never propounded by Husserl and certainly not before the transcendental turn.
145

144

See A I 35, p. 11.

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makes it clear,146 the Russell set would simply be a countersense. Moreover Husserl argues147 that membership in a set is an example of what he calls relations of essences, and in such relations the members cannot be identical. Beginning on p. 13 of the manuscript, Husserl speaks also about sets constructible from the axioms and denitions. As Husserl points out,148 one should not ascribe an extension (or set) to all general concepts. As an example he mentions149 that the mere something in general of formal ontology, on which all formal ontological fundamental concepts are based, does not have any extension. Husserl considers other less palatable solutions in the rst part of the manuscript, like the possibility of considering the notion of set as a special case of the notion of a whole, but what is important is that, as he states on p. 25 of the manuscript,150 from the fact that we can speak about all sets does not follow that the totality of sets is a set, in the same sense that from the fact that we can speak about all possibilities does not follow that the totality of all possibilities is a possibility. Contrary to what I sustained in my dissertation, and even though Husserl uses the expression contructible on pp. 1213, the whole discussion of Husserl in part a of the manuscript is perfectly compatible with his philosophy of mathematics as presented in Logische Untersuchungen, especially if we consider his epistemology of mathematics of the second part of the Sixth Logical Investigation, in which he offers an iterative constitution of mathematical objects in categorial intuition. Such a view is clearly related to the views of his friends Cantor and Zermelo on the iterative notion of set, which is not to be related with constructivisms of Kantian or Brouwerian, or any other sort. The case of part b of the manuscript is somewhat different. It dates from 1920, two years after the publication of Hermann Weyls Das Kontinuum. Weyl and his wife had been students of Husserl and were life-long friends of him. It seems that the publication of Weyls book, in which a mild constructivism was propounded, as well as the personal contact with his much younger friend, exerted a momentary inuence on Husserl, which reected itself in the second part of the manuscript. In this manuscript Husserl tries to show that the way to avoid the paradoxes consists in a constructive axiomatization of set theory. More explicitly, he stresses that a manifold is to be understood as a constructively (denite) characterized region of objects, which remains (materially) undetermined, whose objects can be constructed by the iteration into innity of denitely formed operations, and whose axioms must be so chosen as to found a priori such constructibility.151 Thus, for Husserl in part
146 147 148 149 150 151

A I 35, p. 12. Ibid. Ibid., pp. 1718. Ibid., p. 17. A I 35, p. 25. Ibid., pp. 4748.

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b of the manuscript, the doctrine of manifolds should be the mathematical discipline of the possible constructible innities and its task should be to construct a priori the possible forms of such innities as constructive systems.152 With respect to Russellsbetter Zermelo-RussellsParadox, Husserl says153 that it should not be assumed that concepts like that of the set of all sets that do not contain themselves as members have a totality, i.e., a set as extension, and that what such a paradox shows is that there is still no logic of sets in general. Moreover, Husserl adds154 that sets should be demonstrably constructible with respect to all its members, and that mathematics must furnish an existence proof of each and every set. Husserl is, however, not explicit enough with respect to his notion of constructibility. It is only clear that he requires an existence proof of each set. An interesting question here is whether Husserls theory of manifolds and, in general, of mathematical objects required some revision on the basis of these constructivistic leanings of 1920, since, as we have shown elsewhere,155 neither Russells nor Cantors sets can be obtained in the iterative hierarchy of mathematical objects propounded in the Sixth Logical Investigation. The fact of the matter is that in his later Formale und transzendentale Logik there is no explicit mention of such a restriction to constructible manifolds. Thus, either Weyls impact on Husserl was of short duration or he was convinced that his original philosophy of mathematics, together with his epistemology of mathematics, in which his iterative hierarchy of mathematical objects is inserted, were enough to prevent the paradoxes. These alternative explanations are by no means exclusive, and most probably both are correct.

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