Brouwer’s Cambridge lectures on intuitionism Edited by D. VAN DALEN Rijksuniversiteit Utrecht CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS CAMBRIDGE LONDON NEW YORK NEW ROCHELLE MELBOURNE SYDNEYLuitzen Egbertus Jan Brouwer founded a school of thought whose aim was to include mathematics within the framework of intuitionistic philosophy; mathematics was to be regarded as an essentially free development of the human mind. What emerged diverged considerably at some points from tradition, but intuitionism has survived well the struggle between contending schools in the foundations of mathematics to influence the new constructive mathematics and exact philosophy. This monograph contains a series of lectures dealing with most of the fundamental topics such as choice sequences, the continuum, the fan theorem, order and well-order. . Brouwer’s own powerful style is evident throughout the work. Graduate students and professionals working in mathematics, logic and philosophy will welcome this masterful account. Cover design by Michael and Shirley Tucker CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS 0521 234417Published by the Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge CB2 I1RP 32 East 57th Street, New York, NY 10022, USA 296 Beaconsfield Parade, Middle Park, Melbourne 3206, Australia. © Cambridge University Press 1981 First published 1981 Printed in Great Britain at the University Press, Cambridge British Library cataloguing in publication data Brouwer, Luitzen Egbertus Jan Brouwer’s Cambridge lectures on intuitionism 1. Intuitionistic mathematics — Addresses, essays, lectures I. Dalen, D Van 511.2 QA9.47 80-41239 ISBN 0 521 23441 7Contents L. E. J, Brouwer frontispiece Editorial preface page vii 1 HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION AND FUNDAMENTAL 1 NOTIONS Discussion of formalism and pre-intuitionism; first and second acts of intuitionism; fleeing properties; species, basic notions; principles of judgeability and reciprocity; a274= 7; spreads, basic notions 2 GENERAL PROPERTIES OF SPECIES, SPREAD 21 DIRECTIONS, SPREADS AND SPACES Blocks, pyramids, etc.; weak forms of union; cardinal numbers; individualized spreads; Car- tesian spaces (R"); basic topological notions, points of closure, accumulation, etc.; compact- ness, locatedness; characterization of compact located species; located infinite species F 3 ORDER 40 Basic notions; intuitive between does not order the continuum; well-ordered species; marked well-ordered species; mathematical de- ductions; well-ordered blocks, stumps; virtual order, inextensible order vvi Contents 4 PRECISION ANALYSIS OF THE CONTINUUM 57 Intercalation subdivision; first-order precision, second-order precision; ordinal density, separ- ability, connectedness, everywhere-density, local compactness 5 THE BUNCH THEOREM 17 Crude blocks contain well-ordered blocks; bunch (fan) theorem; uniform continuity theo- rem; Heine—Borel theorem; unsplittability of the continuum; unorderability of the continuum. Appendix 90 Notes 95 References 103 Index 107Editorial preface In the years after the Second World War, from 1946 to 1951, Brouwer gave various series of lectures on intuitionism at the University of Cambridge. He decided to collect the material together in a monograph, which would be the first systematic exposition of intuitionistic mathematics in book form. As a matter of fact it was not his first such enterprise; in a way Brouwer meant his dissertation to be a comprehensive expo- sition of his philosophical and mathematical views. In ‘The rejected parts of Brouwer’s dissertation on the foundations of mathematics’,} van Stigt tells how the intervention of Brouwer’s thesis adviser prevented the insertion of the philosophical parts. Although he never got beyond the stage of intentions, Brouwer seriously considered the publication of a revised version of his thesis. In 1929 the Noordhoff publishing company invited him to carry out these plans, but Brouwer was at that time already involved in the preparation of a German monograph. From the late twenties onwards Brouwer gave expository and propagan- distic lectures, mainly in Germany but also in other countries. According to eye-witnesses Brouwer, with his lectures, made quite an impression. The intuitionist ‘putsch’ was the topic of many a heated discussion. In particular his Gastvorlesungen in Berlin in 1927 raised high hopes for the establishment of intuitionism as an accepted part of mathematical practice. The barely veiled rivalry between Berlin and Gottingen most probably played an important role in the enthusiastic reception of intuitionism in Berlin, the spirited + van Stigt, W. P. (1979) The rejected parts of Brouwer’s dissertation on the foundations of mathematics. Historia Mathematica 6, 385-404, viiviii Editorial preface challenge of Hilbert’s complacent supremacy was welcomed by more than one mathematician, especially in Berlin. The Berliner Tageblatt invited Brouwer to contribute a series of articles on intuitionism in a public debate with Hilbert. At the same time the publishing house of Walter de Gruyter asked Brouwer if it could publish his Berlin lectures. In March 1927, when a first draft of the text was ready, de Gruyter proposed to Brouwer that he should expand the text into a book ‘which the public no doubt will tear out of your hands’. Unfortunately nothing came of it; Brouwer dropped the Berlin lectures and started to work on the book, but never finished it. Apart from his course on intuitionism in Amsterdam (1927/28), Brouwer also lectured in Groningen (1933), Geneva (1934), Cape Town (1952), the USA and Canada (1953). These courses were all modelled after the Berlin lectures. The Vienna guest lecture, ‘Die Struktur des Kontinuums’,t the Cape Town lectures,{ and his Canadian and American lectures§ are in a sense selections of Brouwer’s projected magnum opus. Eventually none of the projected books or monographs ap- peared. When van Stigt and I undertook the collecting of Brouwer’s estate in 1976 we found, through the kind assistance of Professor Dijkman, various manuscripts, among which was one of the Berlin lectures and one of the Cambridge lectures. The Berlin lectures had not been rewritten or greatly changed, but the Cambridge lectures showed signs of being extensively reworked for a longer period. The manuscript we found carried the handwritten note (in Brouwer’s handwriting) Laatste her- ziening tekst van Cambridge-boek (Final revision text of Cambridge book), so there is some reason to believe that it represents Brouwer’s views (of the fifties) in a reasonably ade- quate way. It is an open question why Brouwer never published his + Brouwer, L. E. J. (1930) Die Struktur des Kontinuums. Gistel, Vienna. 14 pp. t Brouwer, L. E. J. (1952) Historical background, principles and methods of intuitionism. South African Journal of Science 49, 139-46. § Brouwer, L. E. J. (1954) Points and spaces. Canadian Journal of Mathematics 6, 1-17.Editorial preface ix lectures. In 1951, when Brouwer lectured for the last time in Cambridge, five of the six planned chapters were finished (the sixth chapter would probably have dealt with the theory of functions). Professor S. W. P. Steen and Dr N. Routledge, who were involved in the preparation of the Cambridge lectures, had the impression that Brouwer never intended to publish the lectures, and that he used the proposed book as a pretext to return to Cambridge where he loved to lecture. Nevertheless, Brouwer kept revising his manuscript long after he stopped Jecturing in Cambridge. Comparing the Cambridge lectures with earlier expositions, e.g. the Berlin lectures, it will strike the reader that Brouwer did not strive for new revolutionary breakthroughs, but rather for a consolidation of the fundamental material of intuitionism. I think that it is safe to agree that Brouwer’s two most spectacular performances in his foundational work, given the basic notions (e.g. natural number, choice sequence), are the continuity theorem (involving continuity, bar induction, etc.) and the strong counter- examples (involving the creative subject). Although the ultimate exploitation of the notion of the creative subject is achieved only in 1949,+ the notion already occurs implicitly in Die Struktur des Kontinuums and in the Berlin lectures (1927). In the Cambridge lectures extensive use is made of the creative subject, but not in the optimal way (most counterexamples are weak, ie. in the form ‘as long as non-tested statements are known we cannot say that’, and not strong, i.e. of the form ‘7A holds’ or, in Brouwer’s terminology, ‘A is absurd’). [t remains a baffling puzzle why Brouwer did not fully exploit the strength of the creative subject. Possibly he arrived at the stronger results (what he calls the contradictority of, for example, the classical theory of functions) only after he had designed his course, so that he did not choose to embark on a large-scale overhaul of his lecture notes. It is + Brouwer, L. E. J. (1949a) De non-aequivalentie van de constructieve en de negatieve orderelatie in het continuum. Indagationes Mathematicae 11, 37-9. Translated as ‘The non-equivalence of the constructive and negative order relation on the continuum’ in Brouwer, L. E. J. (1975) Collected works, Vol. 1, ed. A. Heyting. North-Holland Publ. Co., Amsterdam. pp. 495-6.x Editorial preface also conceivable that Brouwer had second thoughts on the matter. It is remarkable that he published his first strong application of the creative subject in 1949 in Dutch,t whereas the first such application in English appeared only in 1954.¢ Notes written in pencil in the margin of the manuscript indicate that Brouwer entertained the idea of strengthening the pre- sentation. He never did so, however. It will be convenient to keep the notion of the creative subject, e.g. in Kreisel’s presentation,’ in mind when reading the text. It will be helpful to sort out the weak from the strong negations. Posy has pointed out that, in particular where virtual and inextensible order are concerned, an analysis in terms of |-,, is useful.! On the one hand Brouwer tries to obtain maximal generality; in particular in the theory of spreads he adds a great number of distinctions which result from a generous generalization of the basic notions as presented in earlier expositions.“ On the other hand he wishes to restrict the notion of choice sequence by abolishing higher order restrictions (i.e. restrictions on restric- tions, etc.), which were explicitly introduced in Brouwer (1942a).* In the Cambridge lectures Brouwer is vaguely sus- picious of higher order restrictions: ‘But at present the author is inclined to think this admission superfluous and perhaps leading to needless complications’. In Brouwer (1952)** this has been strengthened to: ‘However, this admission is not justified by + Brouwer, L. E. J. (1949a) De non-aequivalentie van de constructieve en de negatieve orderelatie in het continuum. Indagationes Mathematicae 11, 37-9. + Brouwer, L. E. J. (1954) An example of contradictority in classical theory of functions. Indagationes Mathematicae 16, 204-5. § Kreisel, G. (1967) Informal rigour and completeness proofs. In Problems in the philosophy of mathematics, ed. I. Lakatos, pp. 138-86. North-Holland Publ. Co., Amsterdam. # Posy, C. J. A note on Brouwer's definitions of unextendable order (to appear). * Brouwer, L. E. J. (1925) Zur Begriindung der intuitionistischen Mathematik I. Mathematische Annalen 93, 244-57. * Brouwer, L. E. J. (1942a) Zum freien Werden von Mengen und Funktionen. Indagationes Mathematicae 4, 107-8. **Brouwer, L. E. J. (1952) Historical background, principles and methods of intuitionism. South African Journal of Science 49, 139-46.Editorial preface xi close introspection and moreover would endanger the simplicity and rigour of further developments’. Unfortunately Brouwer has not elaborated the point, and so far no convincing arguments have come forward to decide the issue for or against higher order restrictions. The matter is of some interest as it has been argued that, according to Brouwer (1952), lawless sequences are not intuitionistically acceptable. It is curious that Brouwer never mentions this simplest of all notions of choice sequence in print; he mentions it, however, explicitly in a letter to Heyting in 1924. Freudenthal recalls that when, during the Berlin lectures, the notion of a sequence based on throwing a die was suggested Brouwer firmly rejected it (probably because it was based on the physical world). A feature that might irritate a modern reader, but which typically belongs to Brouwer, is the consistent refusal to use symbolic notation. It seems tempting to ascribe this to Brouwer’s aversion for formalization with its Hilbertian under- tones. I think, however, that it was simply a characteristic of Brouwer’s style. Even in his topological papers he writes in a leisurely style, avoiding the economic use of handy formalisms. In the present monograph, for example, Brouwer consistently uses such expressions as ‘the absurdity of the absurdity of a’, ‘a is contradictory’, where a7a and 7a would be infinitely more readable. Still in 1951 Brouwer uses the old terminology of Schoenfliess for union and intersection, # (M,N) and 2? (M,N), but even in this instance Brouwer does not make an effective use of the notation. Almost always he prefers ‘the union of M and N’ to ‘P(M.NY. Taking into account Brouwer’s views on communication it seems more reasonable to state that his style was a logical consequence of his personal experience and technique of trans- ferring knowledge and insight. That is to say, in particular in the case of intuitionism that cannot be taught as if it were, say, linear algebra, there was a strong aspect of convincing, con- version, especially in the eyes of Brouwer who considered in- tuitionistic mathematics as the one and only correct mathe-xii Editorial preface matics. As a result a persuasive, personal, non-formal style is exactly what one would expect. The only change in notation I have made is to use the standard union and intersection symbols. Together with the manuscript a number of scraps and private notes for use during the lectures were filed. I have collected some of them into an appendix, which also contains parts of an address he gave in 1951, Furthermore I have added a number of notes of Brouwer that are relevant to the matter and that may be clarifying. Notes by the editor in the text are contained in square brackets [ ]. In addition to Brouwer’s own footnotes, indicated by symbols, there are numbered endnotes provided by the editor. Thanks are due to Professor Dijkman, who donated all the material to the Brouwer Archive, and also to the Mathematics Department of the Rijksuniversiteit Utrecht for its generous secretarial and material assistance. I am particularly indebted to W. P. van Stigt, who with great enthusiasm and ingenuity joined in the researches connected with Brouwer'’s estate, and also to the Netherlands Organization for the Advancement of Pure Research (Z.W.O.) that enabled van Stigt to spend the academic year 1976/77 in Utrecht. In the matter of the collecting of the biographical and scien- tific material the Brouwer family, in the person of the executor of the will, Ir. L. E. J. Brouwer, has been very helpful. I am grateful for his generous cooperation in the founding of the Brouwer Archive and for his approval of the publication of the material. I want to express my gratitude to the Cambridge University Press for its willingness to legitimize the present, rather aged, child and for the helpfulness of its staff, in particular Mrs Jane Holland, in the preparation of the manuscript. D. van Dalen Utrecht, June 19801 Historical introduction and fundamental notions’ The gradual transformation of the mechanism of mathematical thought is a consequence of the modifications which, in the course of history, have come about in the prevailing philosophi- cal ideas, firstly concerning the origin of mathematical certainty, secondly concerning the delimitation of the object of mathemati- cal science. In this respect we can remark that in spite of the continual trend from object to subject of the place ascribed by philosophers to time and space in the subject-object medium, the belief in the existence of immutable properties of time and space, properties independent of experience and of language, remained well-nigh intact far into the nineteenth century. To obtain exact knowledge of these properties, called mathematics, the following means were usually tried: some very familiar regularities of outer or inner experience of time and space were postulated to be invariable, either exactly, or at any rate with any attainable degree of approximation. They were called axioms and put into language. Thereupon systems of more complicated properties were developed from the linguistic sub- stratum of the axioms by means of reasoning guided by ex- perience, but linguistically following and using the principles of classical logic. We will call the standpoint governing this mode of thinking and working the observational standpoint, and the long period characterized by this standpoint the observational period. It considered logic as autonomous, and mathematics as (if not existentially, yet functionally) dependent on logic. For space the observational standpoint became untenable when, in the course of the nineteenth and the beginning of the 12 Brouwer’s Cambridge lectures on intuitionism twentieth centuries, at the hand of a series of discoveries with which the names of Lobatchefsky, Bolyai, Riemann, Cayley, Klein, Hilbert, Einstein, Levi-Civita and Hahn are associated, mathematics was gradually transformed into a mere science of numbers; and when besides observational space a great number of other spaces, sometimes exclusively originating from logical speculations, with properties distinct from the traditional, but no less beautiful, had found their arithmetical realization. Consequently the science of classical (Euclidean, three- dimensional) space had to continue its existence as a chapter without priority, on the one hand of the aforesaid (exact) science of numbers, on the other hand (as applied mathematics) of (naturally approximative) descriptive natural science. In this process of extending the domain of geometry, an important part had been played by the logico-linguistic method, which operated on words by means of logical rules, sometimes without any guidance from experience and sometimes even starting from axioms framed independently of experience. Encouraged by this the Old Formalist School (Dedekind, Cantor, Peano, Hilbert, Russell, Zermelo, Couturat), for the purpose of a rigorous treatment of mathematics and logic (though not for the purpose of furnishing objects of investigation to these sciences), finally rejected any elements extraneous to language, thus divest- ing logic and mathematics of their essential difference in charac- ter, as well as of their autonomy. However, the hope originally fostered by this school that mathematical science erected accord- ing to these principles would be crowned one day with a proof of its non-contradictority was never fulfilled, and nowadays, after the logical investigations performed in the last few decades, we may assume that this hope has been relinquished universally. Of a totally different orientation was the Pre-intuitionist School, mainly led by Poincaré, Borel and Lebesgue. These thinkers seem to have maintained a modified observational standpoint for the introduction of natural numbers, for theHistorical introduction and fundamental notions 3 principle of complete induction, and for all mathematical entities springing from this source without the intervention of axioms of existence, hence for what might be called the ‘separable’ parts of arithmetic and of algebra. For these, even for such theorems as were deduced by means of classical logic, they postulated an existence and exactness independent of language and logic and regarded its non-contradictority as certain, even without logical proof. For the continuum, however, they seem not to have sought an origin strictly extraneous to language and logic. On some occasions they seem to have contented themselves with an ever-unfinished and ever-denumerable species of ‘real numbers’ generated by an ever-unfinished and ever-denumerable species of laws defining convergent infinite sequences of rational numbers. However, such an ever-unfinished and ever-denumerable species of ‘real numbers’ is incapable of fulfilling the mathematical function of the continuum for the simple reason that it cannot have a positive measure. On other occasions they seem to have introduced the continuum by having recourse to some logical axiom of existence, such as the ‘axiom of ordinal connectedness’, or the ‘axiom of completeness’, without either sensory or epi- stemological evidence. In both cases in their further development of mathematics they continued to apply classical logic, including the principium tertii exclusi, without reserve and independently of experience. This was done regardless of the fact that the non- contradictority of systems thus constructed had become doubt- ful by the discovery of the well-known logico-mathematical antonomies. In point of fact, pre-intuitionism seems to have maintained on the one hand the essential difference in character between logic and mathematics, and on the other hand the autonomy of logic, and of a part of mathematics. The rest of mathematics became dependent on these two. Meanwhile, under the pressure of well-founded criticism exer- ted upon old formalism, Hilbert founded the New Formalist School, which postulated existence and exactness independent of language not for proper mathematics but for meta-mathematics,4 Brouwer’s Cambridge lectures on intuitionism which is the scientific consideration of the symbols occurring in perfected mathematical language, and of the rules of manipu- lation of these symbols. On this basis new formalism, in contrast to old formalism, in confesso made primordial practical use of the intuition of natural numbers and of complete induction. It is true that only for a small part of mathematics (much smaller than in pre-intuitionism) was autonomy postulated in this way. New formalism was not deterred from its procedure by the objection that between the perfection of mathematical language and the perfection of mathematics itself no clear connection could be seen. So the situation left by formalism and pre-intuitionism can be summarized as follows: for the elementary theory of natural numbers, the principle of complete induction and more or less considerable parts of arithmetic and of algebra, exact existence, absolute reliability and non-contradictority were universally ac- knowledged, independently of language and without proof. As for the continuum, the question of its languageless existence was neglected, its establishment as a set of real numbers with positive measure was attempted by logical means and no proof of its non-contradictory existence appeared. For the whole of mathe- matics the four principles of classical logic were accepted as means of deducing exact truths. In this situation intuitionism intervened with two acts, of which the first seems to lead to destructive and sterilizing consequences, but then the second yields ample possibilities for new developments. FIRST ACT OF INTUITIONISM Completely separating mathe- matics from mathematical language and hence from the phenomena of language described by theoretical logic, recognizing that in- tuitionistic mathematics is an essentially languageless activity of the mind having its origin in the perception of a move of time. This perception of a move of time may be described as the falling apart of a life moment into two distinct things, one of which gives way to the other, but is retained by memory. If the twoity thus born isHistorical introduction and fundamental notions 5 divested of all quality, it passes into the empty form of the common substratum of all twoities. And it is this common substratum, this empty form, which is the basic intuition of mathematics. Inner experience reveals how, by unlimited unfolding of the basic intuition, much of ‘separable’ mathematics can be rebuilt in a suitably modified form. In the edifice of mathematical thought thus erected, language plays no part other than that of an efficient, but never infallible or exact, technique for memoriz- ing mathematical constructions, and for communicating them to others, so that mathematical language by itself can never create new mathematical systems. But because of the highly logical character of this mathematical language the following question naturally presents itself. Suppose that, in mathematical language, trying to deal with an intuitionist mathematical operation, the figure of an application of one of the principles of classical logic is, for once, blindly formulated. Does this figure of language then accompany an actual languageless mathematical procedure in the actual mathematical system concerned? A careful examination reveals that, briefly expressed, the answer is in the affirmative, as far as the principles of contradiction and syllogism are concerned,? if one allows for the inevitable inadequacy of language as a mode of description and communi- cation. But with regard to the principle of the excluded third, except in special cases, the answer is in the negative, so that this principle cannot in general serve as an instrument for discovering new mathematical truths. Indeed, if each application of the principium tertii exclusi in mathematics accompanied some actual mathematical procedure, this would mean that each mathematical assertion (i.e. an as- signment of a property to a mathematical entity) could be judged, that is to say could either be proved or be reduced to absurdity. Now every construction of a bounded finite nature in a finite mathematical system can only be attempted in a finite number of ways, and each attempt proves to be successful or abortive in a finite number of steps. We conclude that every assertion of6 Brouwer’s Cambridge lectures on intuitionism possibility of a construction of a bounded finite nature in a finite mathematical system can be judged, so that in these circum- stances applications of the principium tertii exclusi are legitimate. But now let us pass to infinite systems and ask for instance if there exists a natural number n such that in the decimal ex- pansion of a the nth, (n+ 1)th, ..., (v+8)th and (n+9)th digits form a sequence 0123456789. This question, relating as it does to a so far not judgeable assertion, can be answered neither affirma- tively nor negatively. But then, from the intuitionist point of view, because outside human thought there are no mathematical truths, the assertion that in the decimal expansion of z a sequence 0123456789 either does or does not occur is devoid of sense. The aforesaid property, suppositionally assigned to the num- ber n, is an example of a fleeing property,> by which we under- stand a property f, which satisfies the following three requirements: (i) for each natural number n it can be decided whether or not n possesses the property f; (ii) no way of calculating a natural number n possessing f is known; (iii) the assumption that at least one natural number possesses f is not known to be an absurdity. Obviously the fleeing nature of a property is not necessarily permanent, for a natural number possessing f might at some time be found, or the absurdity of the existence of such a natural number might at some time be proved, By the critical number x, of the fleeing property f we under- stand the (hypothetical) smallest natural number possessing /.* A natural number will be called an up-number of f if it is not smaller than x,, and a down-number if it is smaller than x,. Of course, f would cease to be fleeing if an up-number of f were found, A fleeing property is called two-sided with regard to parity if neither of an odd nor of an even x, the absurdity of existenceHistorical introduction and fundamental notions 7 has been demonstrated. Let s, be the real number which is the limit of the infinite sequence a,, a,,..., where a,=(—2)~" if v is a down-number and a,=(—2)~“/ if v is an up-number of f. This real number violates the principle of the excluded third, for neither is it equal to zero nor is it different from zero and, although its irrationality is absurd, it is not a rational number. Moreover if f is two-sided with regard to parity then s, is neither 20 nor $0. The belief in the universal validity of the principle of the excluded third in mathematics is considered by the intuitionists as a phenomenon of the history of civilization of the same kind as the former belief in the rationality of z, or in the rotation of the firmament about the earth. The intuitionist tries to explain the long duration of the reign of this dogma by two facts: firstly that within an arbitrarily given domain of mathematical entities the non-contradictority of the principle for a single assertion is easily recognized; secondly that in studying an extensive group of simple every-day phenomena of the exterior world, careful application of the whole of classical logic was never found to lead to error.t The mathematical activity made possible by the first act of intuitionism seems at first sight, because mathematical creation by means of logical axioms is rejected, to be confined to ‘separable’ mathematics, mentioned above; while, because also the principle of the excluded third is rejected, it would seem that even within ‘separable’ mathematics the field of activity would have to be considerably curtailed. In particular, since the con- tinuum appears to remain outside its scope, one might fear at this stage that in intuitionism there would be no place for analysis. But this fear would have assumed that infinite se- +This means de facto that common objects and mechanisms subjected to familiar manipulations behave as if the system of states they can assume formed part of a finite discrete set, whose elements are connected by a finite number of relations.8 Brouwer’s Cambridge lectures on intuitionism quences generated by the intuitionistic unfolding of the basic intuition would have to be fundamental sequences,® i.e. pre- determinate infinite sequences proceeding, like classical ones, in such a way that from the beginning the nth term is fixed for each n. Such however is not the case; on the contrary, a much wider field of development, including analysis and often exceeding the frontiers of classical mathematics, is opened by the second act of intuitionism. SECOND ACT OF INTUITIONISM Admitting two ways of creat- ing new mathematical entities: firstly in the shape of more or less freely proceeding infinite sequences of mathematical entities pre- viously acquired (so that, for example, infinite decimal fractions having neither exact values®, nor any guarantee of ever getting exact values are admitted); secondly in the shape of mathematical species, i.e. properties supposable for mathematical entities pre- viously acquired, satisfying the condition that if they hold for a certain mathematical entity, they also hold for all mathematical entities which have been defined to be ‘equal’ to it, definitions of equality having to satisfy the conditions of symmetry, reflexivity and transitivity. By the elements of a species we understand the mathematical entities previously acquired} for which the property in question holds.{ These elements will also be said to belong to the species. Two mathematical entities will be called different if their equality proves to be absurd. The notations for equality and difference will be = and # respectively. Two infinite sequences of mathematical entities a,,a),... and b,,b2,... will be said to be equal, or identical, if a,=b, for each v and distinct if a natural number n can be indicated (or calcu- lated) such that a, and 6, are different. + It follows that during the development of intuitionist mathematics some species may have to be considered as being tacitly defined again and again in the same way. + A species can be an element of another species, but never an element of itself!Historical introduction and fundamental notions 9 A species is called discrete if any two of its elements can be proved either to be equal or to be different. If the species M possesses an element which cannot possibly belong to the species N, or, what is the same, is different from each element of N, we shall say that M deviates from N. The species M will be called a subspecies of the species N, and we shall write MCN, if every element of M can be proved to belong to N. If in addition N deviates from M, then M is called a proper subspecies of N. If each element of N either belongs to M or cannot possibly belong to M, then M is called a removable subspecies of N. Two species are said to be equal, or identical, if for each element of either of them an element of the other equal to it can be indicated. They are called different if their equality is absurd, and congruent if neither can deviate from the other.’ For instance the following three species are congruent to one ano- ther: the species P of the infinite sequences of Os and 1s; the species M of those elements of P which either consist only of Os or begin with a 1 or begin with a finite number of Os followed by a 1; and the species N of those elements of P which either consist of 1s or begin with a 0, or begin with a finite number of 1s followed by a 0. Obviously each property that is absurd for all elements of one of two congruent species is also absurd for those of the other. Suppose, conversely, that every property that is absurd for the elements of the one species is also absurd for the elements of the other. Then this holds in particular for the property of being different from each element of one of the two species, from which we immediately deduce the congruence of the two species. Note that two species can be congruent and different at the same time. Let S be a species of species s. The property of being an element of all these species s will be called the intersection AS,8 and the property of being an element of at least one of the species s will be called the unionUS of the species s.° If S$ has only a finite number of elements s,,..., 5, or a funda-10 Brouwer’s Cambridge lectures on intuitionism mental sequence —5,,8,53,..-, we shall also write $1 A820. ..ASq,5;0S2U.- Sy, ANd Mien Si, Uien 5; Tespectively.'? A species which cannot possess an element is said to be empty. Two different species whose intersection is empty are called disjoint. The above-mentioned well-nigh evident non-contradictority within an arbitrarily given domain of mathematical entities of the simple principle of judgeability or the simple principle of the excluded third, ie. of the principle of the excluded third enun- ciated for an arbitrary single assertion, holds for the whole of intuitionistic mathematics. It even holds for the simultaneous enunciation of the principle of the excluded third for an arbit- rary finite number of assertions. For, the enunciation of the principle of the excluded third for an assertion is itself an assertion, and finite additivity of non-contradictority in an arbit- rarily given domain of mathematical assertions is easily estab- lished in the following way. Let the assertions p and o be non-contradictory, and let us start for a moment from the supposition @ that the conjunction t of p and og is contradictory. Then the truth of p would entail the contradictority of o. Since the contradictority of o clashes with the data, the truth of p is absurd, ie. p is absurd. Thus a consequence of the supposition @ clashes with the data, and so this supposition is contradictory, i.e. t is non-contradictory. This finite additivity of the non-contradictority of the prin- ciple of judgeability cannot be extended to universal additivity; in particular the contradictority can be proved of the following complete principle of judgeability. If a,b and c are species of mathematical entities, and both a and b are subspecies of c, and b consists of those elements of c which cannot belong to a, then c is identical with the union of a and b.Historical introduction and fundamental notions u We formulate the following pair of corollaries of the simple and the complete principles of judgeability respectively, of which the former is non-contradictory and the latter contradictory: (1) if of two assertions a and b, a is equivalent to the absurdity of b, then b is equivalent to the absurdity of a (simple principle of reciprocity of absurdity or simple principle of truth by non-contradiction); (2) if a, b and ¢ are species of mathematical entities, and both a and b are subspecies of c, and b consists of those elements of c which cannot belong to a, then a consists of those elements of c which cannot belong to b (complete principle of re- ciprocity of absurdity or principle of reciprocity of com- plementarity or complete principle of truth by non- contradictority). Another pair of corollaries of the simple and of the complete principles of judgeability respectively follows: (1) every mathematical assertion can be tested, i.e. can either be proved to be non-contradictory or to be absurd (simple principle of testability, which is non-contradictory); (2) if a, b, d and c are species of mathematical entities, and a, b and d are subspecies of c, and b consists of those elements of c which cannot belong to a, and d of those elements of c which cannot belong to b, then ¢ is identical with the union of b and d (complete principle of testability, which is contradictory). The assertion mentioned above of the existence of a sequence 0123456789 in the decimal expansion of x so far neither satisfies the simple principle of judgeability nor the simple principle of testability. Let us consider a ‘subordinating’ sequence of n predicates of absurdity: absurdity of absurdity ... of absurdity, or in a short- ened form, abs abs ... abs. The classical point of view admits the principle of reciprocity of complementarity, and thus allows12 Brouwer’s Cambridge lectures on intuitionism this sequence to be reduced, by repeated cancellation of pairs of successive predicates, either to truth or to absurdity. One might expect that from the intuitionistic point of view such cancel- lations are strictly excluded, so that unequal sequences of this kind would have to be treated as inequivalent. But, surprisingly, this is not the case; cancellations of the kind mentioned are admissable, provided that they leave the first predicate of the sequence untouched, as follows from the following intuitionistic THEOREM Absurdity of absurdity of absurdity is equivalent to absurdity."' PrRooF Firstly, since implication of the assertion y by the assertion x implies implication of absurdity of x by absurdity of y, the implication of absurdity of absurdity by truth (which is an established fact) implies the implication of absurdity of truth, that is to say of absurdity, by absurdity of absurdity of absurdity. Secondly, since truth of an assertion implies absurdity of its absurdity, in particular truth of absurdity implies absurdity of absurdity of absurdity. From the theorem thus proved it follows that in intuitionistic mathematics every subordinating sequence of n>2 predicates of absurdity can be reduced either to absurdity or to absurdity of absurdity. Another corollary of the same theorem is the intuitionistic validity of the principle of reciprocity of complementarity for negative assertions, which proves that this principle has a larger domain of validity than the principle of the excluded third. By a node of order n we understand a sequence of n natural numbers (121) called the indices of the node. A node p' of order n+m (m21) will be called an mth de- scendant of the node p of order n, and p will be called the mth predecessor of p’, if the sequence of indices of p is an initial segment of the sequence of indices of p’.Historical introduction and fundamental notions 13 The union of the node p and the species of its descendants will be called a pyramid, of which p will be called the top. If m= 1, p’ will also be called an immediate descendant of p and p the immediate predecessor of p’. The immediate descendants of a node p of order n in their natural order (i.e. ordered according to their last index) con- stitute a species Q of nodes. This species will be called a row of nodes of order n+1 and the ramifying row of p, whilst p will be called the dominant of Q. The species of the nodes of order 1, in their natural order, will be called the row of nodes of order 1. A finite sequence of nodes consisting of a node p, of order 1, an immediate descendant p, of p,, an immediate descendant p, of p2,... up to an immediate descendant p, of p,_ ,, will be called a stick of order n. An infinite (but not necessarily predeterminate) sequence of nodes consisting of a node p, of order t, an immediate de- scendant p, of p,, an immediate descendant p; of p, etc., ad infinitum, will be called an arrow. The arrow may proceed throughout with complete freedom, ie. in the passage from p, to p,,, the choice of a new index to be joined to those of p, may be completely free for each v as long as the creating subject likes, But this freedom of proceeding may at any stage be completely abolished at the beginning, or at any p,, by means of a law fixing all further nodes in advance. From this moment the arrow concerned will be called a sharp arrow. Finally the freedom of proceeding, without being completely abolished, may at some p, undergo some restriction, and later on further restrictions.+ All these intervening acts, as well as the choices of the p, themselves, may (at the beginning or at any later stage) be made +In some former publications of the author restrictions of freedom of future restrictions of freedom, restrictions of freedom of future restrictions of freedom of future restrictions of freedom, and so on, were also admitted. But at present the author is inclined to think this admission superfluous and perhaps leading to needless complications. [A stronger statement can be found in Brouwer (1952).]14 Brouwer’s Cambridge lectures on intuitionism to depend on the influence of possible future occurrences in the world of mathematical thought of the creating subject. Let p be a fundamental sequence a,,a,.. . into which the species of nodes has been arranged in such a way that each node comes before its descendants, and before the nodes it precedes in its row of nodes. Then even if no details of this arrangement are known, the sequence of indices of each a, can be reconstructed as soon as for each a, its ramifying row can be indicated [including the row of nodes of order 1]. The arrangement can be effected, for example, in the following way. Let G, be the species of the nodes of order Sn and indices <7, G,,, the species of the nodes of G, of order v, and A, (n22) the species of the nodes of G, not belonging to G,_,. Each G,, is enumerated in such a way that p precedes q if the first index in which they differ is smaller for p than for g. Then each G, is enumerated by making each G,, precede G,,, , ,. This implies an enumeration for each A,. Finally the species of the nodes is enumerated by making G, precede each A,, and each A, precede Ay yy. Let us suppose that in p an assignment is made to each node successively of either a ‘figure’, ie. no thing or a mathematical entity previously acquired, or the predicate of being ‘sterilized’, in such a way that each descendant of a sterilized node is sterilized likewise, that the figures assigned in the case of non- Sterilization are predeterminate (but not the decisions between sterilization and non-sterilization) and that for each non- Sterilized node a non-sterilized immediate descendant can be indicated. Such a sequence of assignments will be called a spread direction. If, instead of requiring that for each non-sterilized node a non- sterilized immediate descendant can be indicated, we impose the condition that for each n at least a non-sterilized node of order n is available, the sequence of assignments will be called a spread haze direction.