From geometry to phenomenology (Q928743)

This impressively researched article discusses Edmund Husserl's interest in \textit{D. Hilbert}'s 1902 memoir ``Über die Grundlagen der Geometrie'' [Gött. Nachr., 233--241 (1902; JFM 33.0486.02)]. In this memoir Hilbert uses group theory and set theory in an attempt to formulate Lie's concept of a continuous group of transformations without the assumption of the differentiability of the functions defining the group. The present article argues that the non-metrical, topological approach of Hilbert's memoir must have pleased Husserl, who worried that the popular analytic approach to geometry was misguided and ultimately circular. More importantly, the article argues that Husserl's interest in Hilbert's group-theoretic approach to geometry may have inspired his (Husserl's) notion of eidetic intuition. The paper thus clarified one respect in which the roots of Husserl's phenomenology are in mathematics.