•  736
    Muisti (edited book)
    Tampere University Press. 2013.
    Proceedings of the annual congress of the Finnish Philosophical Association in 2013. Theme: memory.
  •  425
    Radical Besinnung in Formale und transzendentale Logik
    Husserl Studies 34 (3): 247-266. 2018.
    This paper explicates Husserl’s usage of what he calls “radical Besinnung” in Formale und transzendentale Logik. Husserl introduces radical Besinnung as his method in the introduction to FTL. Radical Besinnung aims at criticizing the practice of formal sciences by means of transcendental phenomenological clarification of its aims and presuppositions. By showing how Husserl applies this method to the history of formal sciences down to mathematicians’ work in his time, the paper explains in detail…Read more
  •  260
    Radical Besinnung as a method for phenomenological critique
    In Andreea Smaranda Aldea, David Carr & Sara Heinämaa (eds.), Method Matters: Phenomenology as Critique. 2022.
    The paper discusses Husserl’s method of historical reflection, radical Besinnung, as defined and used in Formale und transzendentale Logik (1929). Whereas Formal and Transcendental Logic introduces and displays Husserl’s usage of Besinnung in the context of the exact sciences, the paper seeks to develop it as a more general critical method with which to approach any rational goal-directed activity. Husserl defines Besinnung as a method that enables understanding agents and their actions by expli…Read more
  •  220
    Epistemic values and their phenomenological critique
    In Ilpo Hirvonen, Sara Heinämaa & Mirja H. Hartimo (eds.), Contemporary Phenomenologies of Normativity. pp. 234-251. 2022.
    Husserl holds that the theoretical sciences should be value-free, i.e., free from the values of extra-scientific practices and guided only by epistemic values such as coherence and truth. This view does not imply that to Husserl the sciences would be immune to all criticism of interests, goals, and values. On the contrary, the paper argues that Husserlian phenomenology necessarily embodies reflection on the epistemic values guiding the sciences. The argument clarifies Husserl’s position by compa…Read more
  •  214
    This essay presents Husserl’s Formal and Transcendental Logic (1929) in three main sections following the layout of the work itself. The first section focuses on Husserl’s introduction where he explains the method and the aim of the essay. The method used in FTL is radical Besinnung and with it an intentional explication of proper sense of formal logic is sought for. The second section is on formal logic. The third section focuses on Husserl’s “transcendental logic,” which is needed to make Huss…Read more
  •  108
    Spielbedeutungen
    Philosophy Today 47 (Supplement): 71-78. 2003.
  •  106
    Husserl’s notion of definiteness, i.e., completeness is crucial to understanding Husserl’s view of logic, and consequently several related philosophical views, such as his argument against psychologism, his notion of ideality, and his view of formal ontology. Initially Husserl developed the notion of definiteness to clarify Hermann Hankel’s ‘principle of permanence’. One of the first attempts at formulating definiteness can be found in the Philosophy of Arithmetic, where definiteness serves the …Read more
  •  106
    From geometry to phenomenology
    Synthese 162 (2): 225-233. 2008.
    Richard Tieszen [Tieszen, R. (2005). Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, LXX(1), 153–173.] has argued that the group-theoretical approach to modern geometry can be seen as a realization of Edmund Husserl’s view of eidetic intuition. In support of Tieszen’s claim, the present article discusses Husserl’s approach to geometry in 1886–1902. Husserl’s first detailed discussion of the concept of group and invariants under transformations takes place in his notes on Hilbert’s Memoir Ueber die Gru…Read more
  •  97
    Husserl's Pluralistic Phenomenology of Mathematics
    Philosophia Mathematica 20 (1): 86-110. 2012.
    The paper discusses Husserl's phenomenology of mathematics in his Formal and Transcendental Logic (1929). In it Husserl seeks to provide descriptive foundations for mathematics. As sciences and mathematics are normative activities Husserl's attempt is also to describe the norms at work in these disciplines. The description shows that mathematics can be given in several different ways. The phenomenologist's task is to examine whether a given part of mathematics is genuine according to the norms t…Read more
  •  91
    In his 1896 lecture course on logic–reportedly a blueprint for the Prolegomena to Pure Logic –Husserl develops an explicit account of logic as an independent and purely theoretical discipline. According to Husserl, such a theory is needed for the foundations of logic (in a more general sense) to avoid psychologism in logic. The present paper shows that Husserl’s conception of logic (in a strict sense) belongs to the algebra of logic tradition. Husserl’s conception is modeled after arithmetic, an…Read more
  •  68
    Mathematical roots of phenomenology: Husserl and the concept of number
    History and Philosophy of Logic 27 (4): 319-337. 2006.
    The paper examines the roots of Husserlian phenomenology in Weierstrass's approach to analysis. After elaborating on Weierstrass's programme of arithmetization of analysis, the paper examines Husserl's Philosophy of Arithmetic as an attempt to provide foundations to analysis. The Philosophy of Arithmetic consists of two parts; the first discusses authentic arithmetic and the second symbolic arithmetic. Husserl's novelty is to use Brentanian descriptive analysis to clarify the fundamental concept…Read more
  •  68
    Phenomenology and mathematics (edited book)
    Springer. 2010.
    This volume aims to establish the starting point for the development, evaluation and appraisal of the phenomenology of mathematics.
  •  64
    It is beginning to be rather well known that Edmund Husserl, the founder of phenomenological philosophy, was originally a mathematician; he studied with Weierstrass and Kronecker in Berlin, wrote his doctoral dissertation on the calculus of variations, and was then a colleague of Cantor in Halle until he moved to the Göttingen of Hilbert and Klein in 1901. Much of Husserl’s writing prior to 1901 was about mathematics, and arguably the origin of phenomenology was in Husserl’s attempts to give phi…Read more
  •  64
    The paper traces the development and the role of syntactic reduction in Edmund Husserl’s early writings on mathematics and logic, especially on arithmetic. The notion has its origin in Hermann Hankel’s principle of permanence that Husserl set out to clarify. In Husserl’s early texts the emphasis of the reductions was meant to guarantee the consistency of the extended algorithm. Around the turn of the century Husserl uses the same idea in his conception of definiteness of what he calls “mathemati…Read more
  •  57
    This paper discusses Jean van Heijenoort’s (1967) and Jaakko and Merrill B. Hintikka’s (1986, 1997) distinction between logic as auniversal language and logic as a calculus, and its applicability to Edmund Husserl’s phenomenology. Although it is argued that Husserl’s phenomenology shares characteristics with both sides, his view of logic is closer to the model-theoretical, logic-as-calculus view. However, Husserl’s philosophy as transcendental philosophy is closer to the universalist view. This …Read more
  •  56
    Husserl and gödel’s incompleteness theorems
    Review of Symbolic Logic 10 (4): 638-650. 2017.
    The paper examines Husserl’s interactions with logicians in the 1930s in order to assess Husserl’s awareness of Gödel’s incompleteness theorems. While there is no mention about the results in Husserl’s known exchanges with Hilbert, Weyl, or Zermelo, the most likely source about them for Husserl is Felix Kaufmann (1895–1949). Husserl’s interactions with Kaufmann show that Husserl may have learned about the results from him, but not necessarily so. Ultimately Husserl’s reading marks on Friedrich W…Read more
  •  52
    Husserl on completeness, definitely
    Synthese 195 (4): 1509-1527. 2018.
    The paper discusses Husserl’s notion of definiteness as presented in his Göttingen Mathematical Society Double Lecture of 1901 as a defense of two, in many cases incompatible, ideals, namely full characterizability of the domain, i.e., categoricity, and its syntactic completeness. These two ideals are manifest already in Husserl’s discussion of pure logic in the Prolegomena: The full characterizability is related to Husserl’s attempt to capture the interconnection of things, whereas syntactic co…Read more
  •  40
    Husserl on Kant and the critical view of logic
    Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 65 (6): 707-724. 2022.
    ABSTRACT This paper seeks to clarify Husserl’s critical remarks about Kant’s view of logic by comparing their respective views of logic. In his Formal and Transcendental Logic Husserl criticizes Kant for not asking transcendental questions about formal logic, but rather ascribing an ‘extraordinary apriority’ to it. He thinks the reason for Kant’s uncritical attitude to logic lies in Kant’s view of logic as directed toward the subjective, instead of being concerned with a ‘“world” of ideal Object…Read more
  •  21
    Introduction to special issue on ‘critical views of logic’
    with Øystein Linnebo and Frode Kjosavik
    Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 65 (6): 631-637. 2022.
    Critical views of logic are presented. These are views that are critical of logic in a sense akin to the way in which Kant is critical rather than dogmatic about traditional metaphysics. Such approaches differ from the Fregean ‘logic-first’ view. In accordance with the latter, logic is often regarded as epistemologically and methodologically fundamental. Hence, all disciplines – including mathematics – are considered as answerable to logic, rather than vice versa. In critical views of logic, by …Read more
  •  17
    Essays on Gödel's Reception of Leibniz, Husserl, and Brouwer
    History and Philosophy of Logic 37 (3): 297-299. 2016.
    The book collects together most of the essays on Kurt Gödel that Mark van Atten has either authored or co-authored. The essays portray Gödel's project as an attempt to use Husserlian phenomenology...
  •  13
    The paper shows how to use the Husserlian phenomenological method in contemporary philosophical approaches to mathematical practice and mathematical ontology. First, the paper develops the phenomenological approach based on Husserl's writings to obtain a method for understanding mathematical practice. Then, to put forward a full-fledged ontology of mathematics, the phenomenological approach is complemented with social ontological considerations. The proposed ontological account sees mathematical…Read more
  •  12
    Husserl and Mathematics
    Cambridge University Press. 2021.
    Husserl and Mathematics explains the development of Husserl's phenomenological method in the context of his engagement in modern mathematics and its foundations. Drawing on his correspondence and other written sources, Mirja Hartimo details Husserl's knowledge of a wide range of perspectives on the foundations of mathematics, including those of Hilbert, Brouwer and Weyl, as well as his awareness of the new developments in the subject during the 1930s. Hartimo examines how Husserl's philosophical…Read more
  •  9
    This book offers an updated and comprehensive phenomenology of norms and normativity. It is the first volume that systematically tackles both the normativity of experiencing and various experiences of norms. Part I begins with a discussion of the methodological resources that phenomenology offers for the critique of epistemological, social and cultural norms. It argues that these resources are powerful and have largely been neglected in contemporary philosophy as well as social and human science…Read more
  •  8
    Husserl and Hilbert
    In Stefania Centrone (ed.), Essays on Husserl’s Logic and Philosophy of Mathematics, Springer Verlag. 2017.
    The paper examines Husserl’s phenomenology and Hilbert’s view of the foundations of mathematics against the backdrop of their lifelong friendship. After a brief account of the complementary nature of their early approaches, the paper focuses on Husserl’s Formale und transzendentale Logik viewed as a response to Hilbert’s “new foundations” developed in the 1920s. While both Husserl and Hilbert share a “mathematics first,” nonrevisionist approach toward mathematics, they disagree about the way in …Read more