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constructivism
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constructivism

philosophy of mathematics

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foundations of mathematics

  • Achilles paradox
    In foundations of mathematics: Foundational logic

    …be saved by a 20th-century construction usually ascribed to Church, though he had been anticipated by the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951). According to Church, the number 2 is the process of iteration; that is, 2 is the function which to every function f assigns its iterate 2(f) = f…

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formalism
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formalism

philosophy of mathematics
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formalism, in mathematics, school of thought introduced by the 20th-century German mathematician David Hilbert, which holds that all mathematics can be reduced to rules for manipulating formulas without any reference to the meanings of the formulas. Formalists contend that it is the mathematical symbols themselves, and not any meaning that might be ascribed to them, that are the basic objects of mathematical thought. Compare intuitionism; logicism.

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