History of Logic Seminar Series - Talk: Andrea Ariotto, "Jean Cavaillès and the reception of the Hilbert program in France" (18.03.2026)
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We are pleased to announce the sixth session of the second annual cycle of the History of Logic Seminar Series. The session will be held on Wednesday, March 18, from 3 to 5 p.m. CET.
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On this occasion, we will host a talk by Andrea Ariotto (Sorbonne Université). His talk is titled Jean Cavaillès and the reception of the Hilbert program in France. Here is a short abstract:
In this talk I will discuss Jean Cavaillès’ interpretation of David Hilbert’s foundational program. Starting from a reading of Méthode axiomatique et formalisme (1938), I first reconstruct Cavaillès’ account of the development of Hilbert’s position and of the state of the debate on the foundations of mathematics in the 1930s. Then, I will spell out the philosophical themes that structure his interpretation of formalism, arguing that Cavaillès reads Hilbert’s work by emphasizing its Kantian dimension. To show how Hilbert’s project can be understood as developing certain aspects of Kant’s philosophy of mathematics, I focus on the role of signs and on the status of intuition. Finally, drawing also on other texts by Cavaillès, I will argue that his interpretation of Hilbert places Cavaillès’ own position at the intersection of a Neo-Kantian and a phenomenological understanding of formalism.
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Kind regards,
Antonio