Brouwer meets Husserl: On the Phenomenology of Choice Sequences (Synthese Library, 335) 2007th Edition 9781402050862

Can the straight line be analysed mathematically such that it does not fall apart into a set of discrete points, as is usually done but through which its fundamental continuity is lost? And are there objects of pure mathematics that can change through time?

Mathematician and philosopher L.E.J. Brouwer argued that the two questions are closely related and that the answer to both is “yes”. To this end he introduced a new kind of object into mathematics, the choice sequence. But other mathematicians and philosophers have been voicing objections to choice sequences from the start.

This book aims to provide a sound philosophical basis for Brouwer’s choice sequences by subjecting them to a phenomenological critique in the style of the later Husserl.