Chapter 6
question can not have been constructed before one of its elements. The contrary
philosophical view that mathematical objects are pre-exisiting and definitions
merely single them out (like the characterization: Mathilda is the tallest person
in the room) rather than construct them is called Platonism and was unacceptable
to Weyl.
20
This was part of an address delivered in 1922 first in Copenhagen and then in
Hamburg. I’m indebted to Walter Felscher for calling my attention to the connec-
tion between Hilbert’s heated rhetoric and the times he was living through. The
full text of the address can be found (in English translation) in Mancosu (1998,
pp. 198–214). I found the translation accurate enough, but not communicating
adequately the fire in ...