Husserl's two notions of completeness. Husserl and Hilbert on completeness and imaginary elements in mathematics (Q1840997): Difference between revisions

As part of a sequel to his \textit{Philosophie der Arithmetik} (1891) Husserl, around 1900, considered ``relative'' and ``absolute'' completeness. The latter coincides with Hilbert's ``deductive'' or ``syntactic'' completeness. The author gives a modern interpretation of Husserl's justification of the extension of the natural numbers. A previous interpretation (Claire Ortiz Hill and U. Majer are cited) is deemed fallacious. Much hinges on the author's appreciation that for Husserl ``it is not quite right to say that a system \(B\) extends another system \(A\), even if \(B\) contains what may look like the same axioms of \(A\) plus some extra axioms'' (430). Rather the effect of such an addition is to change the meaning of those axioms that \(A\) apparently shares with \(B\) and even to change the meaning of the symbols used in \(A\).