Against intuitionism: Constructive mathematics is part of classical mathematics (Q1062970)

The author starts his paper by saying that constructive mathematics is commonly held to be, if not identical with Brouwer's intuitionism, at least founded on certain basic tenets of intuitionism. The 'basic tenets of intuitionism' to which the author refers do not include the theory of spreads. They do include the idea of mathematics as an activity of construction which is not essentially linguistic and the Brouwer/Heyting conception of logic in terms of such constructions. These ideas are a part of Bishop's conception of mathematics as well as of intuitionism. Tait argues against the above tenets, thereby rejecting both intuitionism and Bishop's conception. He then argues for a quite different conception of constructive mathematics. His argument against both the intuitionists and Bishop is that 1) construction has to be understood as construction according to some rule and 2) rules exist only in the context of a language. Based on this he then argues that, for example, numerical functions cannot be identified as rules because, beyond the statement of the rule, there always remains the question of whether the rule does define a numerical function - itself a \(\forall \exists\)-question. Assuming that Tait is right and that, moreover, he is right in regarding mathematics as a practice, defined not by our 'intuitions', whatever they may be, but on our common dispositions to use and react to symbols, then constructive mathematics is to be identified by what kinds of principles of reasoning it admits. This is the basis of the second part of his title. For his claim is, not that every theorem stated by Brouwer for example is word for word classically true. Rather it is that the structures such as spreads that Brouwer discusses can be understood in classical (i.e. ordinary mathematical) terms and that his theorems, once put in such terms, have classical proofs which, in his sense, have the property of being constructive. Tait strongly criticizes the following quote from \textit{L. E. J. Brouwer's} paper entitled ''Historical background, principles and methods of intuitionism''. ''To begin with, the First Act of Intuitionism completely separates mathematics from mathematical language, in particular from the phenomena of language which are described by theoretical logic, and recognizes that intuitionistic mathematics is an essentially languageless activity of the mind having its origin in the perception of a move of time, i.e., of the falling apart of a life moment into two distinct things, one of which gives way to the other, but is retained by memory. If the two-ity thus born is divested of all quality, there remains the empty form of the common substratum of all two-ities. It is this common substratum, this empty form, which is the basic intuition of mathematics.'' I must confess that I have never understood this passage very well; iteration of the basic intuition of mathematics is to yield us the numbers. Tait doubts whether Brouwer's description of a move of time has any real content. However, I guess that Brouwer would agree with Tait's words ''It is true that I have a sense of what it might be fair to call a local temporal continuity in my experience. But any sense I can give to this as an experience of a falling apart, of the past giving way to the future, is highly idealized.'' It seems to me that Brouwer in the quoted passage has tried - more or less successfully - to make clear that mathematics precedes empirical science, where the latter one describes the relation between words and the world. Now for instance the construction of \({\mathbb{N}}\) can be viewed as a project, which can be described by a finite program. And although such a program can be formulated in some language, there is a languageless insight which lies at the root of this project. The project \({\mathbb{N}}\) is in a certain sense similar to the project to swim from the Dutch to the American beach: I can make this project without formulating it in some language and without actually carrying it out. So it seems that the real issue between Tait and the intuitionists, at least in Nijmegen, concerns the notion of a languageless insight. I think the role of language in intuitionistic mathematics can be best described as follows. Intuitionistically, the truth of \(5+7=12\) is a personal one; but by means of sounds and symbols (language) I can originate in others their own constructions of mathematical objects which are similar to the constructions I have made myself, such that the result of my own constructions, e.g. \(5+7=12\), is very similar to the result of my friend's constructions; hence we both say the same thing: five plus seven equals twelve. But each of us has his own constructions of the numbers 5, 7, 12 and of addition: these constructions being so similar, that also the results are similar. An intuitionist will compare his own insights continuously with those of others. This review has strongly benefitted from discussions I had with J. J. de Iongh, W. Veldman and W. W. Tait. The paper ''Number and Function'' announced by the author will not be published. The interested reader is referred to the author's paper ''Truth and proof: the Platonism of mathematics''.