The ignorance of Bourbaki (Q1200112)

This is an angry paper written with passionate rhetoric. Taking as its basic subject the fact that Bourbaki, in the early editions of the `Théorie des Ensembles', did not pay adequate attention to Gödel's Theorems, nor to Fraenkel's contribution to Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory, it degenerates into a diatribe. The author does admit en passant (p. 9) that later editions do mention Gödel, independence results, and the axiom of replacement, but maintains that this does not alter his perceptions (in fact the Note Historique in later editions contains seven pages on ``metamathematics'' which mentions Gödel, Fraenkel, von Neumann, Bernays and others -- this is true in the edition of the 1950's; the ``fascicule des résultats'' of 1939 does in fact not mention Gödel's work, but the later volumes are presumably intended as amplifications). In any case, the author has a point as to the fact that Bourbaki neglected Gödel early on, which he unfortunately embellishes with phrases like ``at whatever level of their psyche the Bourbachistes were disabled'' (p. 9). Acknowledging that Henri Cartan and Jean Dieudonné allude in 1939 to the difficulties occasioned by Gödel's results of 1930, he is offended that they do not mention him by name, nor did Dieudonné in his obituary of Hilbert: ``he still cannot bring himself to mention the dreaded name'' (p. 7). These are perhaps sufficient indications of the author's rhetorical style. As to reasons for Bourbaki's early neglect later corrected he speculates that this may be due among other things to Poincaré's early attitudes or chauvinism: ``any nationalist element in the anti-Gödelian stance may perhaps be local to the Bourbaki group''. He thus conveniently neglects the fact that Jacques Herbrand was a close friend of the Bourbachistes, and Emmy Noether, von Neumann, and Helmut Hasse joined in planning a memorial volume to him [\textit{André Weil's} memoirs, in the English edition, The apprenticeship of a mathematician, p. 104]. He also somewhat contradictorily possibly blames Hilbert's influence for Bourbaki's early stance while maintaining the innuendo of chauvinism. Incidentally Jean Cavailles and André Weil were friends (ibid. p. 152). Perhaps enough has been said to indicate the unfortunately polemical character of this paper. Nevertheless it is worth remarking that once such a polemic gathers momentum it hits all sorts of targets -- thus one footnote attacks the relative dearth of logic in England vis-a-vis the United States. The paper also has two long footnotes citing an anonymous ``friendly critic'' who makes tendentious comments about ``set-theorists with a strong interest in forcing'' and left-and-right-brain distinctions. Leaving aside the reprehensible practice of anonymous citation, this last falls prey to the usual popular confusion about this Nobel prize-winning physiological work: the point is that in an adequately functioning individual the two halves of the brain communicate and are integrated via the corpus callosum. The author's cavalier attitude towards history can be indicated by his placing Klein and Poincaré implicitly in different generations (!) (and Klein in the same generation as Emmy Noether or Hermann Weyl, but after Minkowski -- actual life spans can be confusing!). His ascription of Bourbaki's founding to a feeling after World War I among ``young French mathematicians... that the torch of mathematical research had passed to Germany'' neglects, on the one hand, names like Fréchet, Montel, E. Borel, Baire, Lebesgue, and on the other contradicts André Weil's ascription of the founding of Bourbaki to pedagogical issues (ibid. p. 100) in 1935. The author clearly feels logic is unfairly neglected by mathematicians. He also seems to feel the ``odious phrase'' (p. 7, note 16) ``working mathematician'' is denigratory (and possibly ascribable to Bourbaki). In this paper polemics have precedence over history -- and it does not seem worth much as the latter. The author closes with an unexceptional and unexceptionable comment calling for ``renewed study of the interplay between arithmetic and geometry''.