Hilbert's ‘Verunglückter Beweis’, the first epsilon theorem, and consistency proofs

DOI10.1080/01445340310001606930zbMATH Open1069.03002arXivmath/0204255OpenAlexW2054239358WikidataQ58539928 ScholiaQ58539928MaRDI QIDQ3160441FDOQ3160441

Authors: Richard Zach 

Publication date: 9 February 2005

Published in: History and Philosophy of Logic (Search for Journal in Brave)

Abstract: In the 1920s, Ackermann and von Neumann, in pursuit of Hilbert's Programme, were working on consistency proofs for arithmetical systems. One proposed method of giving such proofs is Hilbert's epsilon-substitution method. There was, however, a second approach which was not reflected in the publications of the Hilbert school in the 1920s, and which is a direct precursor of Hilbert's first epsilon theorem and a certain 'general consistency result' due to Bernays. An analysis of the form of this so-called 'failed proof' sheds further light on an interpretation of Hilbert's Programme as an instrumentalist enterprise with the aim of showing that whenever a `real' proposition can be proved by 'ideal' means, it can also be proved by 'real', finitary means.

Full work available at URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/math/0204255

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zbMATH Keywords

Hilbert's programmeepsilon theoremsconsistency proofs

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

History of mathematics in the 20th century (01A60) History of mathematical logic and foundations (03-03)

Cites Work

• The consistency of arithmetics
• A survey of proof theory
• On the Interpretation of Non-Finitist Proofs--Part I
• HILBERT'S PROGRAMME
• Zur Widerspruchsfreiheit der Zahlentheorie

Cited In (10)

• A note on a proof of Hilbert's second ε-theorem
• The epsilon calculus and Herbrand complexity
• The habilitation of John von Neumann at Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität in Berlin: judgements on a Hungarian-Jewish mathematician in the Germany of 1927
• EPSILON THEOREMS IN INTERMEDIATE LOGICS
• Two (or three) notions of finitism
• Grundlagen der Mathematik. I / Foundations of mathematics. I. Part A. Prefaces and \S\S1--2. Edited and with a preface by Dov Gabbay, Michael Gabbay, Jörg Siekmann and Claus-Peter Wirth. Commented translation by Claus-Peter Wirth of the second German edition of 1968, including the annotation and translation of all deleted parts of the first German edition of 1934. With a chapter ``Hilbert's proof theory by Wilfried Sieg. Dual English-German text
• Wave equation numerical resolution: a comprehensive mechanized proof of a C program
• THE COLLAPSE OF THE HILBERT PROGRAM: A VARIATION ON THE GÖDELIAN THEME
• On Bourbaki's axiomatic system for set theory
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