Husserl's phenomenology and Weyl's predictivism (Q1293027)

The author shows that Husserl's phenomenology can be regarded as some sort of background philosophy of \textit{Hermann Weyl}'s important book ``Das Kontinuum'' [Veit, Leipzig (1918; JFM 46.0056.01); see for the first English edition (1987; Zbl 0742.03001) and for the last reprint of the English translation Dover, New York (1994; Zbl 0849.03001)]. The author stresses, however, that Weyl gave not ``a faithful interpretation of Husserl's thought''. Weyl's approach is rather ``the mathematical complementation of the phenomenologist's work'' (p. 279). His adoption of Husserlian ideas can be compared to his attitude towards Brouwerian intuitionism: he took over basic ideas, but contradicted in other respects. In the case of phenomenology Weyl strictly followed the Husserlian principle of the primacy of intuition in the founding of knowledge. The author concludes ``that Husserl's phenomenology does indeed constitute an important and perhaps essential component of the philosophical environment in which Weyl carries out his reconstruction of classical mathematical analysis, not only by providing its fundamental notion, that of a general form of perception, but also by shaping its technical features'' (p. 295).