Talk:L. E. J. Brouwer

message: It would be interesting to have a separate page for the Brouwer-Hilbert controversy concerning the foundational issues briefly mentioned here. Katzmik (talk) 11:55, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: For an ambitious soul a place to start is Stephen Kleene's Introduction to Metamathematics, Chapter III A CRITIQUE OF MATHEMATICAL REASONING. He discusses §11. The paradoxes, §12. First inferences from the paradoxes [ impredicative definitions, Logicism etc], §13. Intuitionism, §14. Formalism, §15. Formalization of a theory. Kleene's writing is so impressive is because he takes the debate seriously, and throughout his book he actually builds the two "formal systems" (for example, on page 119 where he shows those logical laws such as double negation that are disallowed in the Intuitionist system). Kleene's writing on this is the only such writing I've been able to understand. Bill Wvbailey (talk) 15:41, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for your comments.  A wiki page on this would clearly be welcome.  Katzmik (talk) 11:53, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Brouwer-Hilbert controversy

message: Hi. A few days ago I posted an external link to the book Life, Art and Mysticism which Brouwer wrote at the age of 23. The link was then discarded as a spam link. It definitely is not spam and I believe this page wouldn't be complete without something about this book. I believe it has a big educational value in it. Elucidations of the book are included in the linkpage. I hope I will get some support on this. Greetings --Controle2 (talk) 10:29, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Of course, the link is of immense importance. Among other things, it reveals the influence of Schopenhauer. This is manifested in Brouwer's concept of the "sad world" and his discussions of "will." As he aged, he partially suppressed such musings in order to try to focus on purely mathematical matters.Lestrade (talk) 17:24, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Good to see you support the importance of the book in the Brouwer article. Since nobody opposes I have added the link. --Controle2 (talk) 12:07, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: It *is* spam due to the commentary and other links.  I've changed the link to one that just provides a pdf of the actual work.Ekwos (talk) 02:03, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Revolutionary book by L.E.J. Brouwer 

message: Here it states that Brouwer was considered reliable by the Nazis. Here it states that he was supporting the resistance. What's known about his life actually?  213.93.89.128 (talk) 17:50, 18 May 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  WW2 

message: A Google Books search gives:
* 2,030 hits for Luitzen Egbertus Jan Brouwer
* 35 hits for Bertus Brouwer 
* 13,800 hits for L. E. J. Brouwer 
So, to my opinion, the present name (L. E. J. Brouwer) is the most common (and best) one. Thanks to Michael Hardy for the move. Further information on article names and abbreviations in them, see: WP:TITLE and WP:INITS. -- Crowsnest (talk) 08:05, 5 June 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article name 

message: Is there a source for the claim that his friends called him "Bertus"? --178.1.55.209 (talk) 11:21, 28 January 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: See page 2 in van Dalen, Dirk, L. E. J. Brouwer—topologist, intuitionist, philosopher. How mathematics is rooted in life. Springer, London, 2013. Tkuvho (talk) 14:07, 28 January 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Bertus" 

message: We are told that "The third is perhaps the hardest." Does this mean the hardest to discover, the hardest to prove or the hardest to understand? There seems to be Dutch influence in this article.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.26.2.214 (talk) 13:55, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Possibly this refers to Law of excluded middle. --Ajv39 (talk) 12:47, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  The third  

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: In the article on Mathematics in Nazi Germany it is recorded that Brouwer took the proto-Nazi line that articles by "Ostjuden" should  not be published in Mathematische Annalen.  Hilbert eventually dismissed him from the editorial board.  
I would like to raise the question whether the euphemistic treatment of this episode in this article on Brouwer is appropriate.  It seems to me that the reticence concerning facts that are discoverable elsewhere within Wikipedia is rather futile.  At the same time, it also fails to provide relevant detail to those interested in the life of Brouwer, and fails to do justice to role played by Hilbert.  For all of these reasons,  I think the Brouwer article should recount the episode in no less detail than the article on Mathematics in Nazi Germany.   
The current text expresses a certain disapproval (implied in the word "demeaning") but does not explain it, which is also not appropriate in an encylopedic article. For that matter, the disapproval is accompanied by an implication that the actions were unworthy of Brouwer, whereas it might equally well be that they were entirely consistent with his moral character, taken overall.  Either way, a statement of the facts would be more in keeping with the policies of Wikipedia than these opaquely judgemental phrases. 
Gottlob Frege (talk) 20:22, 24 November 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Brouwer's "ultimately demeaning" dispute with Hilbert about editorial policy