The origin of Geometry

2022

Call for abstracts [English version] - Seminar for Ph.D. students in phenomenology. Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, Sorbonne Université, École normale supérieure.

Chiasmi International, 2000

Revista Pesquisa Qualitativa, 2020

The objective of this article is to present the concept of origin, as presented in Husserl’s initial studies, and the same concept as it appears in his final work. The views he assumed in the different phases of his life are addressed: in Halle, when he follows Brentanian psychology to support the origin of number; in Göttingen, where he remains until 1916, when his thinking about reduction matures; and the final stage in Freiburg. The article presents ways through which he understood and explained the origin of number, considered in the first phase and his first studies as central for the clarification of the fundaments of mathematics. It further presents how he explained the origin of geometry, under the dimension of the life-world, as well as his conception of knowledge and reality, already understood in the 1930s and throughout the years nearing his death as life-world. Keywords: Phenomenology; Origin of number; Origin of geometry; Crisis of modern sciences; Historical a priori.

Axiomathes, 2011

Husserl left many unpublished drafts explaining (or trying to) his views on spatial representation and geometry, such as, particularly, those collected in the second part of Studien zur Arithmetik und Geometrie (Hua XXI), but no completely articulate work on the subject. In this paper, I put forward an interpretation of what those views might have been. Husserl, I claim, distinguished among different conceptions of space, the space of perception (constituted from sensorial data by intentionally motivated psychic functions), that of physical geometry (or idealized perceptual space), the space of the mathematical science of physical nature (in which science, not only raw perception has a word) and the abstract spaces of mathematics (free creations of the mathematical mind), each of them with its peculiar geometrical structure. Perceptual space is proto-Euclidean and the space of physical geometry Euclidean, but mathematical physics, Husserl allowed, may find it convenient to represent physical space with a non-Euclidean structure. Mathematical spaces, on their turn, can be endowed, he thinks, with any geometry mathematicians may find interesting. Many other related questions are addressed here, in particular those concerning the a priori or a posteriori character of the many geometric features of perceptual space (bearing in mind that there are at least two different notions of a priori in Husserl, which we may call the conceptual and the transcendental a priori). I conclude with an overview of Weyl's ideas on the matter, since his philosophical conceptions are often traceable back to his former master, Husserl. This paper is dedicated to my friend Claire Ortiz Hill for her sixtieth birthday.

Don Ihde has recently launched a sweeping attack against Husserl's late philosophy of science. Ihde takes particular exception to Husserl's portrayal of Galileo and to the results Husserl draws from his understanding of Galilean science.Ihde’s main point is that Husserl paints an overly intellectualistic picture of the “father of modern science”, neglecting Galileo’s engagement with scientific instruments such as, most notably, the telescope. According to Ihde, this omission is not merely a historiographical shortcoming. On Ihde’s view, it is only on the basis of a distorted picture of Galileo that Husserl can “create“ (Ihde 2011: 69–82) the division between Lifeworld and the “world of science“, a division that is indeed fundamental for Husserl’s overall position. Hence, if successful, Ihde’s argument effectively undermines Husserl’s late philosophy of science. The aim of this paper is to show that Ihde’s criticism does not stand up to closer historical or philosophical scrutiny.

Husserl Studies, 2006

This paper offers an exposition of Husserl's mature philosophy of mathematics, expounded for the first time in Logische Untersuchungen and maintained without any essential change throughout the rest of his life. It is shown that Husserl's views on mathematics were strongly influenced by Riemann, and had clear affinities with the much later Bourbaki school.

Journal of The British Society for Phenomenology, 1976

2002