Foundations of mathematics
Encyclopedia
Foundations of mathematics is a term sometimes used for certain fields of mathematics
, such as mathematical logic
, axiomatic set theory, proof theory
, model theory
, type theory
and recursion theory
. The search for foundations of mathematics is also a central question of the philosophy of mathematics
: On what ultimate basis can mathematical statements be called true?
The foundational philosophy of Platonist mathematical realism, as exemplified by mathematician Kurt Gödel
, proposes the existence of a world of mathematical objects independent of humans; the truths about these objects are discovered by humans. In this view, the laws of nature and the laws of mathematics have a similar status, and the effectiveness
ceases to be unreasonable. Not our axioms, but the very real world of mathematical objects forms the foundation. The obvious question, then, is: how do we access this world?
The foundational philosophy of formalism, as exemplified by David Hilbert
, is based on axiomatic set theory and formal logic
. Virtually all mathematical theorem
s today can be formulated as theorems of set theory. The truth of a mathematical statement, in this view, is then nothing but the fact that the statement can be derived from the axioms of set theory
using the rules of formal logic.
Merely the use of formalism alone does not explain several issues: why we should use the axioms we do and not some others, why we should employ the logical rules we do and not some others, why do "true" mathematical statements (e.g., the laws of arithmetic
) appear to be true, and so on. In some cases these may be sufficiently answered through the study of formal theories, in disciplines such as reverse mathematics
and computational complexity theory
. Formal logical systems also run the risk of inconsistency
; in Peano arithmetic
, this arguably has already been settled with several proofs of consistency
, but there is debate over whether or not they are sufficiently finitary
to be meaningful. Gödel's second incompleteness theorem establishes that logical systems of arithmetic can never contain a valid proof of their own consistency
. What Hilbert wanted to do was prove a logical system S was consistent, based on principles P that only made up a small part of S. But Gödel proved that the principles P could not even prove P to be consistent, let alone S!
The foundational philosophy of intuitionism
or constructivism
, as exemplified in the extreme by Brouwer
and more coherently by Stephen Kleene, requires proofs to be "constructive" in nature – the existence of an object must be demonstrated rather than inferred from a demonstration of the impossibility of its non-existence. For example, as a consequence of this the form of proof known as reductio ad absurdum
is suspect.
Some modern theories
in the philosophy of mathematics deny the existence of foundations in the original sense. Some theories tend to focus on mathematical practice
, and aim to describe and analyze the actual working of mathematicians as a social group. Others try to create a cognitive science of mathematics, focusing on human cognition as the origin of the reliability of mathematics when applied to the real world. These theories would propose to find foundations only in human thought, not in any objective outside construct. The matter remains controversial.
is one of the schools of thought in the philosophy of mathematics, putting forth the theory that mathematics is an extension of logic and therefore some or all mathematics is reducible to logic. Bertrand Russell
and Alfred North Whitehead
championed this theory fathered by Gottlob Frege
.
, a problem that seemed to befall projective geometry
until it was resolved by Karl von Staudt. As explained by Laptev & Rosenfeld (1996):
The purely geometric approach of von Staudt was based on the complete quadrilateral to express the relation of projective harmonic conjugates. Then he created a means of expressing the familiar numeric properties with his Algebra of Throws. English language versions of this process of deducing the properties of a field
can be found in either the book by Oswald Veblen
and John Young, Projective Geometry (1938), or more recently in John Stillwell
's Four Pillars of Geometry (2005). Stillwell writes on page 120
The algebra of throws is commonly seen as a feature of cross-ratios since students ordinarily rely upon number
s without worry about their basis. However, cross-ratio calculations use metric
features of geometry, features not admitted by purists. For instance, in 1961 Coxeter wrote Introduction to Geometry without mention of cross-ratio.
: Grundlagenkrise der Mathematik) was the early 20th century's term for the search for proper foundations of mathematics.
After several schools of the philosophy of mathematics
ran into difficulties one after the other in the 20th century, the assumption that mathematics had any foundation that could be stated within mathematics
itself began to be heavily challenged.
One attempt after another to provide unassailable foundations for mathematics was found to suffer from various paradox
es (such as Russell's paradox
) and to be inconsistent
: an undesirable situation in which every mathematical statement that can be formulated in a proposed system (such as 2 + 2 = 5) can also be proved in the system.
Various schools of thought on the right approach to the foundations of mathematics were fiercely opposing each other. The leading school was that of the formalist
approach, of which David Hilbert
was the foremost proponent, culminating in what is known as Hilbert's program
, which thought to ground mathematics on a small basis of a logical system proved sound by metamathematical
finitistic
means. The main opponent was the intuitionist
school, led by L. E. J. Brouwer, which resolutely discarded formalism as a meaningless game with symbols (van Dalen, 2008). The fight was acrimonious. In 1920 Hilbert succeeded in having Brouwer, whom he considered a threat to mathematics, removed from the editorial board of Mathematische Annalen
, the leading mathematical journal of the time.
Gödel's incompleteness theorems
, proved in 1931, showed that essential aspects of Hilbert's program could not be attained. In Gödel's
first result he showed how to construct, for any sufficiently powerful and consistent recursively axiomatizable system – such as necessary to axiomatize the elementary theory of arithmetic
on the (infinite) set of natural numbers – a statement that can be shown to be true, but is not provable by the system. It thus became clear that the notion of mathematical truth can not be reduced to a purely formal system
as envisaged in Hilbert's program. In a next result Gödel showed that such a system was not powerful enough for proving its own consistency, let alone that a simpler system could do the job. This dealt a final blow to the heart of Hilbert's program, the hope that consistency could be established by finitistic means (it was never made clear exactly what axioms were the "finitistic" ones, but whatever axiomatic system was being referred to, it was a 'weaker' system than the system whose consistency it was supposed to prove). Meanwhile, the intuitionistic school had not attracted many adherents among working mathematicians, due to difficulties of constructive mathematics
.
In a sense, the crisis has not been resolved, but faded away: most mathematicians either do not work from axiomatic systems, or if they do, do not doubt the consistency of ZFC, generally their preferred axiomatic system. In most of mathematics as it is practiced, the various logical paradoxes never played a role anyway, and in those branches in which they do (such as logic
and category theory
), they may be avoided.
Mathematics
Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...
, such as mathematical logic
Mathematical logic
Mathematical logic is a subfield of mathematics with close connections to foundations of mathematics, theoretical computer science and philosophical logic. The field includes both the mathematical study of logic and the applications of formal logic to other areas of mathematics...
, axiomatic set theory, proof theory
Proof theory
Proof theory is a branch of mathematical logic that represents proofs as formal mathematical objects, facilitating their analysis by mathematical techniques. Proofs are typically presented as inductively-defined data structures such as plain lists, boxed lists, or trees, which are constructed...
, model theory
Model theory
In mathematics, model theory is the study of mathematical structures using tools from mathematical logic....
, type theory
Type theory
In mathematics, logic and computer science, type theory is any of several formal systems that can serve as alternatives to naive set theory, or the study of such formalisms in general...
and recursion theory
Recursion theory
Computability theory, also called recursion theory, is a branch of mathematical logic that originated in the 1930s with the study of computable functions and Turing degrees. The field has grown to include the study of generalized computability and definability...
. The search for foundations of mathematics is also a central question of the philosophy of mathematics
Philosophy of mathematics
The philosophy of mathematics is the branch of philosophy that studies the philosophical assumptions, foundations, and implications of mathematics. The aim of the philosophy of mathematics is to provide an account of the nature and methodology of mathematics and to understand the place of...
: On what ultimate basis can mathematical statements be called true?
Platonism
- “Platonists, such as Kurt GödelKurt GödelKurt Friedrich Gödel was an Austrian logician, mathematician and philosopher. Later in his life he emigrated to the United States to escape the effects of World War II. One of the most significant logicians of all time, Gödel made an immense impact upon scientific and philosophical thinking in the...
(1906–1978), hold that numbers are abstract, necessarily existing objects, independent of the human mind”
The foundational philosophy of Platonist mathematical realism, as exemplified by mathematician Kurt Gödel
Kurt Gödel
Kurt Friedrich Gödel was an Austrian logician, mathematician and philosopher. Later in his life he emigrated to the United States to escape the effects of World War II. One of the most significant logicians of all time, Gödel made an immense impact upon scientific and philosophical thinking in the...
, proposes the existence of a world of mathematical objects independent of humans; the truths about these objects are discovered by humans. In this view, the laws of nature and the laws of mathematics have a similar status, and the effectiveness
The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences
The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences is the title of an article published in 1960 by the physicist Eugene Wigner...
ceases to be unreasonable. Not our axioms, but the very real world of mathematical objects forms the foundation. The obvious question, then, is: how do we access this world?
Formalism
- “Formalists, such as David HilbertDavid HilbertDavid Hilbert was a German mathematician. He is recognized as one of the most influential and universal mathematicians of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Hilbert discovered and developed a broad range of fundamental ideas in many areas, including invariant theory and the axiomatization of...
(1862–1943), hold that mathematics is no more or less than mathematical language. It is simply a series of games...”
The foundational philosophy of formalism, as exemplified by David Hilbert
David Hilbert
David Hilbert was a German mathematician. He is recognized as one of the most influential and universal mathematicians of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Hilbert discovered and developed a broad range of fundamental ideas in many areas, including invariant theory and the axiomatization of...
, is based on axiomatic set theory and formal logic
Formal logic
Classical or traditional system of determining the validity or invalidity of a conclusion deduced from two or more statements...
. Virtually all mathematical theorem
Theorem
In mathematics, a theorem is a statement that has been proven on the basis of previously established statements, such as other theorems, and previously accepted statements, such as axioms...
s today can be formulated as theorems of set theory. The truth of a mathematical statement, in this view, is then nothing but the fact that the statement can be derived from the axioms of set theory
Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory
In mathematics, Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory with the axiom of choice, named after mathematicians Ernst Zermelo and Abraham Fraenkel and commonly abbreviated ZFC, is one of several axiomatic systems that were proposed in the early twentieth century to formulate a theory of sets without the paradoxes...
using the rules of formal logic.
Merely the use of formalism alone does not explain several issues: why we should use the axioms we do and not some others, why we should employ the logical rules we do and not some others, why do "true" mathematical statements (e.g., the laws of arithmetic
Peano axioms
In mathematical logic, the Peano axioms, also known as the Dedekind–Peano axioms or the Peano postulates, are a set of axioms for the natural numbers presented by the 19th century Italian mathematician Giuseppe Peano...
) appear to be true, and so on. In some cases these may be sufficiently answered through the study of formal theories, in disciplines such as reverse mathematics
Reverse mathematics
Reverse mathematics is a program in mathematical logic that seeks to determine which axioms are required to prove theorems of mathematics. Its defining method can briefly be described as "going backwards from the theorems to the axioms", in contrast to the ordinary mathematical practice of...
and computational complexity theory
Computational complexity theory
Computational complexity theory is a branch of the theory of computation in theoretical computer science and mathematics that focuses on classifying computational problems according to their inherent difficulty, and relating those classes to each other...
. Formal logical systems also run the risk of inconsistency
Consistency proof
In logic, a consistent theory is one that does not contain a contradiction. The lack of contradiction can be defined in either semantic or syntactic terms. The semantic definition states that a theory is consistent if and only if it has a model, i.e. there exists an interpretation under which all...
; in Peano arithmetic
Peano axioms
In mathematical logic, the Peano axioms, also known as the Dedekind–Peano axioms or the Peano postulates, are a set of axioms for the natural numbers presented by the 19th century Italian mathematician Giuseppe Peano...
, this arguably has already been settled with several proofs of consistency
Consistency proof
In logic, a consistent theory is one that does not contain a contradiction. The lack of contradiction can be defined in either semantic or syntactic terms. The semantic definition states that a theory is consistent if and only if it has a model, i.e. there exists an interpretation under which all...
, but there is debate over whether or not they are sufficiently finitary
Finitism
In the philosophy of mathematics, one of the varieties of finitism is an extreme form of constructivism, according to which a mathematical object does not exist unless it can be constructed from natural numbers in a finite number of steps...
to be meaningful. Gödel's second incompleteness theorem establishes that logical systems of arithmetic can never contain a valid proof of their own consistency
Consistency proof
In logic, a consistent theory is one that does not contain a contradiction. The lack of contradiction can be defined in either semantic or syntactic terms. The semantic definition states that a theory is consistent if and only if it has a model, i.e. there exists an interpretation under which all...
. What Hilbert wanted to do was prove a logical system S was consistent, based on principles P that only made up a small part of S. But Gödel proved that the principles P could not even prove P to be consistent, let alone S!
Intuitionism
- “Intuitionists, such as L. E. J. Brouwer (1882–1966), hold that mathematics is a creation of the human mind. Numbers, like fairy tale characters, are merely mental entities, which would not exist if there were never any human minds to think about them.”
The foundational philosophy of intuitionism
Intuitionism
In the philosophy of mathematics, intuitionism, or neointuitionism , is an approach to mathematics as the constructive mental activity of humans. That is, mathematics does not consist of analytic activities wherein deep properties of existence are revealed and applied...
or constructivism
Constructivism (mathematics)
In the philosophy of mathematics, constructivism asserts that it is necessary to find a mathematical object to prove that it exists. When one assumes that an object does not exist and derives a contradiction from that assumption, one still has not found the object and therefore not proved its...
, as exemplified in the extreme by Brouwer
Luitzen Egbertus Jan Brouwer
Luitzen Egbertus Jan Brouwer FRS , usually cited as L. E. J. Brouwer but known to his friends as Bertus, was a Dutch mathematician and philosopher, a graduate of the University of Amsterdam, who worked in topology, set theory, measure theory and complex analysis.-Biography:Early in his career,...
and more coherently by Stephen Kleene, requires proofs to be "constructive" in nature – the existence of an object must be demonstrated rather than inferred from a demonstration of the impossibility of its non-existence. For example, as a consequence of this the form of proof known as reductio ad absurdum
Reductio ad absurdum
In logic, proof by contradiction is a form of proof that establishes the truth or validity of a proposition by showing that the proposition's being false would imply a contradiction...
is suspect.
Some modern theories
Theory
The English word theory was derived from a technical term in Ancient Greek philosophy. The word theoria, , meant "a looking at, viewing, beholding", and referring to contemplation or speculation, as opposed to action...
in the philosophy of mathematics deny the existence of foundations in the original sense. Some theories tend to focus on mathematical practice
Mathematical practice
Mathematical practice is used to distinguish the working practices of professional mathematicians from the end result of proven and published theorems.-Quasi-empiricism:This distinction is...
, and aim to describe and analyze the actual working of mathematicians as a social group. Others try to create a cognitive science of mathematics, focusing on human cognition as the origin of the reliability of mathematics when applied to the real world. These theories would propose to find foundations only in human thought, not in any objective outside construct. The matter remains controversial.
Logicism
LogicismLogicism
Logicism is one of the schools of thought in the philosophy of mathematics, putting forth the theory that mathematics is an extension of logic and therefore some or all mathematics is reducible to logic. Bertrand Russell and Alfred North Whitehead championed this theory fathered by Richard Dedekind...
is one of the schools of thought in the philosophy of mathematics, putting forth the theory that mathematics is an extension of logic and therefore some or all mathematics is reducible to logic. Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, OM, FRS was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, and social critic. At various points in his life he considered himself a liberal, a socialist, and a pacifist, but he also admitted that he had never been any of these things...
and Alfred North Whitehead
Alfred North Whitehead
Alfred North Whitehead, OM FRS was an English mathematician who became a philosopher. He wrote on algebra, logic, foundations of mathematics, philosophy of science, physics, metaphysics, and education...
championed this theory fathered by Gottlob Frege
Gottlob Frege
Friedrich Ludwig Gottlob Frege was a German mathematician, logician and philosopher. He is considered to be one of the founders of modern logic, and made major contributions to the foundations of mathematics. He is generally considered to be the father of analytic philosophy, for his writings on...
.
Projective geometry
One of the traps in a deductive system is circular reasoningCircular reasoning
Circular reasoning, or in other words, paradoxical thinking, is a type of formal logical fallacy in which the proposition to be proved is assumed implicitly or explicitly in one of the premises. For example:"Only an untrustworthy person would run for office...
, a problem that seemed to befall projective geometry
Projective geometry
In mathematics, projective geometry is the study of geometric properties that are invariant under projective transformations. This means that, compared to elementary geometry, projective geometry has a different setting, projective space, and a selective set of basic geometric concepts...
until it was resolved by Karl von Staudt. As explained by Laptev & Rosenfeld (1996):
- In the mid-nineteenth century there was an acrimonious controversy between the proponents of synthetic and analytic methods in projective geometry, the two sides accusing each other of mixing projective and metric concepts. Indeed the basic concept that is applied in the synthetic presentation of projective geometry, the cross-ratioCross-ratioIn geometry, the cross-ratio, also called double ratio and anharmonic ratio, is a special number associated with an ordered quadruple of collinear points, particularly points on a projective line...
of four points of a line, was introduced through consideration of the lengths of intervals.
The purely geometric approach of von Staudt was based on the complete quadrilateral to express the relation of projective harmonic conjugates. Then he created a means of expressing the familiar numeric properties with his Algebra of Throws. English language versions of this process of deducing the properties of a field
Field (mathematics)
In abstract algebra, a field is a commutative ring whose nonzero elements form a group under multiplication. As such it is an algebraic structure with notions of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, satisfying certain axioms...
can be found in either the book by Oswald Veblen
Oswald Veblen
Oswald Veblen was an American mathematician, geometer and topologist, whose work found application in atomic physics and the theory of relativity. He proved the Jordan curve theorem in 1905.-Life:...
and John Young, Projective Geometry (1938), or more recently in John Stillwell
John Stillwell
John Stillwell is an Australian mathematician on the faculties of the University of San Francisco and Monash University.He was born in Melbourne, Australia and lived there until he went to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for his doctorate. He received his PhD from MIT in 1970, working...
's Four Pillars of Geometry (2005). Stillwell writes on page 120
- ...projective geometry is simpler than algebra in a certain sense, because we use only five geometric axioms to derive the nine field axioms.
The algebra of throws is commonly seen as a feature of cross-ratios since students ordinarily rely upon number
Number
A number is a mathematical object used to count and measure. In mathematics, the definition of number has been extended over the years to include such numbers as zero, negative numbers, rational numbers, irrational numbers, and complex numbers....
s without worry about their basis. However, cross-ratio calculations use metric
Metric (mathematics)
In mathematics, a metric or distance function is a function which defines a distance between elements of a set. A set with a metric is called a metric space. A metric induces a topology on a set but not all topologies can be generated by a metric...
features of geometry, features not admitted by purists. For instance, in 1961 Coxeter wrote Introduction to Geometry without mention of cross-ratio.
Foundational crisis
The foundational crisis of mathematics (in GermanGerman language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
: Grundlagenkrise der Mathematik) was the early 20th century's term for the search for proper foundations of mathematics.
After several schools of the philosophy of mathematics
Philosophy of mathematics
The philosophy of mathematics is the branch of philosophy that studies the philosophical assumptions, foundations, and implications of mathematics. The aim of the philosophy of mathematics is to provide an account of the nature and methodology of mathematics and to understand the place of...
ran into difficulties one after the other in the 20th century, the assumption that mathematics had any foundation that could be stated within mathematics
Mathematics
Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...
itself began to be heavily challenged.
One attempt after another to provide unassailable foundations for mathematics was found to suffer from various paradox
Paradox
Similar to Circular reasoning, A paradox is a seemingly true statement or group of statements that lead to a contradiction or a situation which seems to defy logic or intuition...
es (such as Russell's paradox
Russell's paradox
In the foundations of mathematics, Russell's paradox , discovered by Bertrand Russell in 1901, showed that the naive set theory created by Georg Cantor leads to a contradiction...
) and to be inconsistent
Consistency proof
In logic, a consistent theory is one that does not contain a contradiction. The lack of contradiction can be defined in either semantic or syntactic terms. The semantic definition states that a theory is consistent if and only if it has a model, i.e. there exists an interpretation under which all...
: an undesirable situation in which every mathematical statement that can be formulated in a proposed system (such as 2 + 2 = 5) can also be proved in the system.
Various schools of thought on the right approach to the foundations of mathematics were fiercely opposing each other. The leading school was that of the formalist
Formalism (mathematics)
In foundations of mathematics, philosophy of mathematics, and philosophy of logic, formalism is a theory that holds that statements of mathematics and logic can be thought of as statements about the consequences of certain string manipulation rules....
approach, of which David Hilbert
David Hilbert
David Hilbert was a German mathematician. He is recognized as one of the most influential and universal mathematicians of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Hilbert discovered and developed a broad range of fundamental ideas in many areas, including invariant theory and the axiomatization of...
was the foremost proponent, culminating in what is known as Hilbert's program
Hilbert's program
In mathematics, Hilbert's program, formulated by German mathematician David Hilbert, was a proposed solution to the foundational crisis of mathematics, when early attempts to clarify the foundations of mathematics were found to suffer from paradoxes and inconsistencies...
, which thought to ground mathematics on a small basis of a logical system proved sound by metamathematical
Metamathematics
Metamathematics is the study of mathematics itself using mathematical methods. This study produces metatheories, which are mathematical theories about other mathematical theories...
finitistic
Finitism
In the philosophy of mathematics, one of the varieties of finitism is an extreme form of constructivism, according to which a mathematical object does not exist unless it can be constructed from natural numbers in a finite number of steps...
means. The main opponent was the intuitionist
Intuitionism
In the philosophy of mathematics, intuitionism, or neointuitionism , is an approach to mathematics as the constructive mental activity of humans. That is, mathematics does not consist of analytic activities wherein deep properties of existence are revealed and applied...
school, led by L. E. J. Brouwer, which resolutely discarded formalism as a meaningless game with symbols (van Dalen, 2008). The fight was acrimonious. In 1920 Hilbert succeeded in having Brouwer, whom he considered a threat to mathematics, removed from the editorial board of Mathematische Annalen
Mathematische Annalen
Mathematische Annalen is a German mathematical research journal founded in 1868 by Alfred Clebsch and Carl Neumann...
, the leading mathematical journal of the time.
Gödel's incompleteness theorems
Gödel's incompleteness theorems
Gödel's incompleteness theorems are two theorems of mathematical logic that establish inherent limitations of all but the most trivial axiomatic systems capable of doing arithmetic. The theorems, proven by Kurt Gödel in 1931, are important both in mathematical logic and in the philosophy of...
, proved in 1931, showed that essential aspects of Hilbert's program could not be attained. In Gödel's
Kurt Gödel
Kurt Friedrich Gödel was an Austrian logician, mathematician and philosopher. Later in his life he emigrated to the United States to escape the effects of World War II. One of the most significant logicians of all time, Gödel made an immense impact upon scientific and philosophical thinking in the...
first result he showed how to construct, for any sufficiently powerful and consistent recursively axiomatizable system – such as necessary to axiomatize the elementary theory of arithmetic
Arithmetic
Arithmetic or arithmetics is the oldest and most elementary branch of mathematics, used by almost everyone, for tasks ranging from simple day-to-day counting to advanced science and business calculations. It involves the study of quantity, especially as the result of combining numbers...
on the (infinite) set of natural numbers – a statement that can be shown to be true, but is not provable by the system. It thus became clear that the notion of mathematical truth can not be reduced to a purely formal system
Formal system
In formal logic, a formal system consists of a formal language and a set of inference rules, used to derive an expression from one or more other premises that are antecedently supposed or derived . The axioms and rules may be called a deductive apparatus...
as envisaged in Hilbert's program. In a next result Gödel showed that such a system was not powerful enough for proving its own consistency, let alone that a simpler system could do the job. This dealt a final blow to the heart of Hilbert's program, the hope that consistency could be established by finitistic means (it was never made clear exactly what axioms were the "finitistic" ones, but whatever axiomatic system was being referred to, it was a 'weaker' system than the system whose consistency it was supposed to prove). Meanwhile, the intuitionistic school had not attracted many adherents among working mathematicians, due to difficulties of constructive mathematics
Constructivism (mathematics)
In the philosophy of mathematics, constructivism asserts that it is necessary to find a mathematical object to prove that it exists. When one assumes that an object does not exist and derives a contradiction from that assumption, one still has not found the object and therefore not proved its...
.
In a sense, the crisis has not been resolved, but faded away: most mathematicians either do not work from axiomatic systems, or if they do, do not doubt the consistency of ZFC, generally their preferred axiomatic system. In most of mathematics as it is practiced, the various logical paradoxes never played a role anyway, and in those branches in which they do (such as logic
Mathematical logic
Mathematical logic is a subfield of mathematics with close connections to foundations of mathematics, theoretical computer science and philosophical logic. The field includes both the mathematical study of logic and the applications of formal logic to other areas of mathematics...
and category theory
Category theory
Category theory is an area of study in mathematics that examines in an abstract way the properties of particular mathematical concepts, by formalising them as collections of objects and arrows , where these collections satisfy certain basic conditions...
), they may be avoided.