Mathematical intuitionism and intersubjectivity. A critical exposition of arguments for intuitionism (Q1972228)

The contemporary version of mathematical intuitionism came into being at the begining of 20th century when Luitzen Egbertus Jan Brouwer defended his doctoral dissertation on the foundations of mathematics. The three central chapters of this monograph deal with the three most widely known arguments for mathematical intuitionism, those of L. E. J. Brouwer, A. Heyting and M. Dummett, with particular attention paid to the problem of the intersubjectivity of mathematics. The notion of intersubjectivity is closely related to that of the possibility of communication. Namely, there is a serious intuitionistic objection (M. Dummett) to classical semantics that a theory of meaning based on the concept of two-valued logic leads to the conclusion that knowledge is not communicable. On the other hand, if we suppose, intuitionistically, that mathematical objects are just mental constructions, completely independent from language, the same problem persists: how can one report something related to some mathematical objects to somebody? The author investigates whether the basic (intuitionistic) conceptions, the language of mathematical discourse or the status of logical laws lead to the consequence that mathematical results are incommunicable. Two conditions for intersubjectivity are specified: the mentalist and the Wittgensteinian. The mentalist condition supposes that, for two people to communicate, their perceptual contents, thoughts or memories should contain some invariant elements, common to all thinking human subjects. The condition requires that the theory of knowledge permit such invariant elements. The Wittgensteinian condition can be presented briefly as follows: in the process of language learning, the people should be able to acquire abilities to use linguistic expressions in basically the same way. They should be able to learn under what circumstances one is entitled to assert a sentence, under what circumstances one may disagree with assertions of other speakers, what question should be asked for receiving the desired information etc. It appears that the mental character of mathematical constructions is at variance with the latter condition, but the author has argued that it does not result in the violation of this condition. It is also shown how the claim by which the truth-conditional account makes meaning incommunicable is mistaken. Although the author's approach is purely philosophical, rather than logical or mathematical, the book seems to be extremly interesting to mathematicians, specialists in logic or foundations of mathematics. Due to the author's clear and approachable style this book may be interesting to a large circle of logicians, mathematicians and philosophers as well.