Wittgenstein, Finitism, and the Foundations of Mathematics

Mathieu Marion offers a careful, historically informed study of Wittgenstein's philosophy of mathematics. This area of his work has frequently been undervalued by Wittgenstein specialists and philosophers of mathematics alike; but the surprising fact that he wrote more on this subject than any other indicates its centrality in his thought. Marion traces the development of Wittgenstein's thinking from the 1920s through to the 1950s, in the context of the mathematical and philosophical work of the times, to make coherent sense of ideas that have too often been misunderstood because they have been presented in a disjointed and incomplete way. He shows that study of Wittgenstein's writings on mathematics is essential to a proper understanding of his philosophy, and also that it can do much to illuminate current debates about the foundations of mathematics.