Arithmetic and Geometry: Some Remarks on the Con-

cept of Complementarity

M. OTTE

Department of Mathematics, University of Bielefeld, Universitiitsstrasse, Bielefeld,

Federal Republic of Germany

AB,$TRACT: This paper explores the classical idea of complementarity in mathematics

concerning the relationship of intuition and axiomatic proof. Section I illustrates the basic
concepts of the paper, while Section II presents opposing accounts of intuitionJst and
axiomatic approaches to mathematics. Section III analyzes one of Einstein's lecture on
the topic and Section IV examines an application of the issues in mathematics and
science education. Section V discusses the idea of complementarity by examining one of
Zeno's paradoxes. This is followed by presenting a few more programmatic suggestions
and a brief summary.

KEY WORDS: complementarity, intuitionism, axiomatic proof.

INTRODUCTION

The, history of science may be briefly sketched as a transition from thinking

about objects to relational thinking. Theoretical thinking, accordingly, is not
concerned with concrete objects, nor with intrinsic properties of such objects,
and theoretical terms, in particular, are not just names of objects. Rather, science
is concerned with the relationships existing between objects or phenomena. As
this historical transition took place, it became increasingly obvious that a
theoretical term will receive its solid content, its clear form, only fxom its
relationship to other concepts. Hence, questions of meaning are decided by a
concept's position with the theoretical structure.
At the beginning of the 19th century, the conception German
Naturphilosophie had formed of theory enhanced this contextual notion of
meaning by claiming, first, that a theory determines the intensions of its terms,
and, second, that intensions determine extensions. This post-Kantian approach
was not only holistic, but also attempted to bridge the gap between analytic and
synthetic truths in the Kantian sense. (The above two propositions are in fact
counterparts to the "two dogmas of empiricism" formulated by Quine in his
rejection of empiricism.)
It became just as obvious, however, that every pertinent piece of theoretical

Studies in Philosophy and Education 10: 37-62, 1990.

9 1990 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.
38 M. OTrE

knowledge, being part of some idea or model of the real world, will in some way
or other take into account that the person having the knowledge is part of the
system this knowledge represents. All knowledge presupposes a subject and an
object and relations between these two (which are established by the subject's
activity). And as the multiplicity of subjective perspectives grew with the
increasing division of labor, it could no longer be overlooked that the subject is
not only the dynamical source of knowledge and change but also its object or
task. In as much as all knowledge is concerned with either of these aspects of the
subject's role it has a distinctly bipartite structure.
This dimorphism shows up on the psychological or practical level just as well
as it is present in all epistemological reflections. I shall call it
"complementarity", a term Niels Bohr introduced to characterize the
phenomenon described within the particular context of the physical sciences,
although he was quite aware of its general importance. The complementarist's
point of view is expressed in multiple ways: all models, theories, theoretical
terms etc. show a complementarity of object and method, of descriptive and
constructive aspects, of representational and instrumental properties. Knowledge
is always both environment and scheme of action. Every scientific explanation
simultaneously contains a meta-communication, i.e. represents, in an exemplary
way, an answer to the question what it means to explain an object or a fact at a
certain historical point in time.
Can it thus be said that the dispute between Newtonian substantivalism and
Leibnizian relationalism, concerning the ontology of space and time, already
showed the complementarity we have in mind? Must it not even be said that the
Cartesian variable 'x' that denotes the still unknown, thereby introducing it into
mathematical activity while at the same time fixing it in a general way, as the
unknown number, and thus describing it, can be understood in this sense of
complementarity? This is indeed possible in our day and from a genetic
perspective whose starting point is the dynamics of objective activity (instead of
a metaphysical consideration of knowledge as a given product).
One of the main problems in the philosophy of mathematics as well as
mathematical education concerns the relationship of intuition and logical
reasoning, as two different sources of mathematical knowledge. Knowing or
awareness as immediate perception on the one hand, and as discursive procedure
on the other, are two kinds of thought that seem to remain in tension. This
tension is real and fictitious at the same time. It is real insofar as the cognitive
subject has only limited powers, is finite, "time" being the source of that tension
(Otto, 1984, 65). It seems at the same time not essential, as intuition and logic
together define just one type of mathematics, namely synthetic constructive
mathematics in the Cartesian sense.
During the 19th century the limitations of the Cartesian approach were more
and more felt and mathematicians sought, thereby creating what is nowadays
called "pure" mathematics, to introduce a conceptual analytical element into
mathematics. Mathematics was after Kant like all other academic disciplines
defined more in contrast and in relationship to philosophy instead of being one
 ARITHMETICAND GEOMETRY 39

speciality among a plurality of others altogether classified in encyclopedic

terms.
In describing the new spirit of his "Ansdehnungslehre", a new type of
geometrical thought, Grassmann wrote in 1844:
The essence of the philosophical method is that it proceeds by means of contrasts to
arrive at the particular from the general; the mathematical method, on file other hand,
proceeds from the simplest concepts to the more complex, and thus, through the
connecting of the particular, attains new and more general concepts .... Since both
mathematics and philosophy are sciences in the strictest sense, so must the methods in
both have something in common which makes them thus scientific.
The ideas by Galois or Cauchy and others are, albeit being expressed in
different terms, marked by the same interest for a new relationship between the
conceptual and the constructive. This trend in the development of mathematics
to partly replace "seeing" with "understanding", that is to say, to replace for
instance explicit computational proofs by conceptual arguments, has been
strengthened in our century. Such conceptual arguments are generally noncon-
structive. "To see that something is true and to understand why it is true need
not be the same thing. The constructivist is willing to give up clarity of under-
standing for the sake of a kind of absolute clarity of vision" (Goodman, 1983,
63). The so-called "Grundlagenkrise" in the foundations of mathematics of this
century was actually a controversy about this complementarity. Intuitionism and
formalism were both in the same boat in as far as they both believed that the
objects of mathematics are constructions. Their quarrel was nothing more than
an argument within one and the same family, as E. Study (1862-1930) once
remarked. Intuitionism and Platonism on the other hand belonged to essentially
different camps because of their different ideas about the status of mathematical
objects. This brings us back to our theme since, as Bernays has noticed:
The duality of arithmetic and geometry is not unrelated to the opposition between
Intuifionism and Platonism. The concept of number appears in arithmetic. It is of
intuitive origin, but then the idea of the totality of numbers is superimposed. On the
other hand, in geometry the Platonistic idea of space is primordial, and it is against
this background that the intuidonist procedures of constructing figures take place.
This suffices to show that the two tendencies, intuitionist and Platortist, are both
necessary; they complement each other, and it would be doing oneself violence to
renounce one or the other (Bemays, 1985, 269).
While arithmetics and geometry, discrete and continuous quantities formed
the subject matter of mathematics up to the 19th century, the function of this
duality, after the evolution of "pure" mathematics, that is after the pervasive
theorization of mathematics in the 19th century, was more that of a mode of
generation of mathematical subject matter. Arithmetics and Geometry in
mutually serving each other as fields of interpretation or as intended applications
together established a mode of generation of mathematical truths that rendered
pure mathematics conceivable. Even the role played later on by set-theoretical
concepts can be understood in the sense of using some generalized geometric
image.
40 M. OTTE

We could emphasize the concepts of "set" and "number" as representing

complementarity in mathematics and could accordingly take set-theoretic
interpretation and formal calculability or provability as the respective sides of
mathematical truth. This may however not only appear as rather artificial to
some - why not organize mathematics in terms of category theory rather then
set-theory, but we would thereby also miss an essential aspect of our theme: the
fact that cognition is very much dependent on its means, tools and artifacts. The
subject is not boundless because his activity is mediated and in a way even
determined by the available means. A sign-system for instance possesses the
capacity literally to mold the world in its own image, shaping the mind to fit its
structure.
But mentalism would also miss the dynamic side of the subject's evolution
and his open-ended and contingent character. As long as we conceive of
cognition as an ensemble of the subjects mental or external actions and of the
theoretical concept as a mere mental scheme of action we cannot see the
possibility of radically new insights. If a written text for instance is defined just
as a communicative function this will not only lead to a psychologistic concep-
tion of meaning, which insists on the unanswerable question "what did the
author really mean?", but would also exclude the seemingly strange and
unexpected interpretation of a text as well as the possibility of radically novel
insights associated with such an original interpretation. If Alan Turing, to take
up another example which is directly pertinent to this paper, would have
believed that "machines of all kinds cannot be a fundamental explanation of
anything", and that the concept of machine is rather defined just by its function,
he would have missed the most essential part of his fundamental results in meta-
mathematics and computing science.
So when we speak about arithmetics and geometry we do not have just
concepts or theorems in mind but refer also to the different codes, means and
symbol systems, which express different ways of our being in the world.
This lengthy introduction may be brought to an end by giving a brief over-
view of the parts to follow: By treating the classical topic of incommen-
surability, Section I illustrates various concepts and considerations which are
basic for this article. Section II then presents a historical case study which uses
HOlder's and Grassmann's conceptions to present the opposed intuitionist vs
axiomatic approaches to mathematics. Section III analyzes and evaluates
Einstein's lecture on 'Geometry and Experience' of 1921 with respect to the
same topic. Section IV contains an application of these considerations to the
context of mathematics and science education, exemplified by Jean Piaget's
ideas which were very influential some years ago. In Section V, I return to my
point of departure, using Zeno's paradox of the race between Achilles and the
tortoise as a thought experiment to discuss the theme of this paper. The last
section contains some more programmatic ideas. As a whole, the reasoning is
developed by means of examples and does not aim at presenting a "closed"
epistemological theory.
 ARrrHMETIC AND GEOMETRY 41

Fig. 1. Fig. 2.

k4-r

a.
!

Fig. 3. Fig. 4.

I. RECURSIVENESS AND INDUCTIVE REASONING

With some good will, it is possible to recognize a feature three of the figures
above have in common: the recursive structure of "the image within the image
within the image...". "The image within the image" implies that the first picture
cannot be completed without completing the second picture, and a condition for
that is again that the third picture be completed, etc. "An object is called
recursive if it contains itself as a part, or is defined by means of itself". Such a
definition may be found within any textbook of mathematics or computer
science.
It was however possible to finish the present pictures because each picture
within the picture is a "simplification" of the former, a fact related to our eyes'
limited power of decomposition. Recursivity, hence, is only given if we may
neglect scales, being able, for example, to enlarge or to change the scale at will.
Numbers and measuring units introduce a direct, absolute element into the
otherwise global, structural, indirect meaning of geometry.
Looking at the Figures 2 and 3 which represent traditional visualizations of
the familiar incommensurabilities of side and diagonal in the case of the square
respectively the regular pentagon interpretation can be done in two ways. First, I
may concentrate on the method or way of "finishing" the picture. Doing this, I
find out that this method corresponds to the Euclidan algorithm. As a result, I
obtain, on the basis of the visual representation, insight into the recursive
structure of this algorithm, as well as the insight that this algorithm can be used
for a proof of incommensurability without recurring to the natural numbers. This
42 M. OTTE

application to the problem of the incommensurability of side and diagonal of

these regular polygons also requires us to disregard scales. The invariance under
geometric similarity or "selfsimilarity" then demonstrates directly that the
algorithm does not lead to the desired goal, i.e. to a division without residue.
Side and diagonal are thus incommensurable.
Second, I may also, following a different approach replace the geometrical
quantities by their numerical measures, with respect to a fundamental unit that
measures both the side and the diagonal in whole numbers. The recursivity or
selfsimilarity leads to an infinitely decreasing progression of natural numbers, as
all figures have sides composed of "whole numbers". This gives a contradiction.
In doing this, I may incidentally note that the geometrical method of construc-
tion of the polygons can be interpreted in terms of the Euclidean algorithm.
If I consider the algorithm, however, only in the field of arithmetics, only
using it together with the numbers, and not interpreting it geometrically,
visually, it will not appear in itself, it will not show its recursive structure. To
attain this, I have to use visualisation and interpret them directly that is "an
image within an image within an image...". With the concept of recursion, I
shall then simultaneously obtain a means to describe a large number of
"calculatory" procedures.
In Section V, we shall deal with Zeno's paradoxes which are a special
expression of the fact that to explain something, for the science and philosophy
of antiquity, meant, to a certain degree, to represent it as "ideal form". Zeno, too,
probably would have been unable to accept a definition by recursion, as this
simultaneously defines an infinite sequence of values in one equation. To verify
such a definition by recursion thus requires to accomplish an infinite number of
separate acts. Reasoning by recurrence contains, condensed in a single formula,
an infinite number of syllogisms. In this sense, the geometrical-visual representa-
tion of recursivity as selfsimilarity would be the only acceptable one.
It has often been stated that Greek mathematics "seemed to confront directly
the objects" with which it was concerned, while "today we tend to turn our
geometry into arithmetic and our arithmetic into algebra" (Fowler, 1987, 21).
But what actually is algebra? The arithmetical method at least is not sufficient
to found algebra. It is true that teachers and educators prefer a demonstration of,
for instance, the distributive law of algebra in the form of "2 and 3 are numbers
such that 2 x (2 + 3) = 2 x 2 + 2 x 3" to any "general" argument by means of
geometrical graphical forms of representation (see Figure 4) i.e. they prefer a
constructive argument to a conceptual one and a calculation to a visualization.
Algebraic diagrams are however not just rules for calculation but offer in face
of their visual character proper opportunities for reflection, constructive
rumination and generalisation. We would claim that inductive reasoning and
such "general" proofs by means of visual diagrams represent two complemen-
tary aspects, which reappear together in the concept of recursion.
The most far-reaching and fundamental arguments to substantiate and justify
visual generalization have been provided by Peirce. I shall render two quotes
from his writings which sound at the same time familiar and a bit strange:
 ARITHMETICAND GEOMETRY 43

Many mathematicians insist that merely talking about a man's income, without saying
how much it is, and saying that $ 4000 being subtracted from it and the remaJ.uder
divided by two will give the tax, at any rate going on to remark that if the tax be
multiplied by a hundred and $ 4000 be added to the product the amount of the income
will be ascertained, - some mathematicians insist that this is algebra, though no letters
are used. It is the spirk of algebra, we may grant. But as faith without works would be
hollow, and confession without heartfelt repentance and amendment would be of little
avail; so if you really and truly are attending to operations on the quantity, abstrac-
tedly from its value, you certainly will try to express it and them as commodiously as
you earl (Peirce, 1965, 322).
It may seem at first glance that it is an arbitrary classification to call an algebraic
expression an icon.., but it is not so. For a great distinguishing property of the icon is
that by the direct observation of it, other truths concerning its object can be discovered
than those which suffice to determine its construction. Thus, by means of two
photographs a map can be drawn, etc.... This capacity of revealing unexpected truth
is precisely that wherein the utility of algebra/c formulae consists, so that the iconic
character is the prevailing one (Peirce, Collected Papers, Vol. 1,279).
So algebraic formulas and diagrams have two aspects, a logical-linear and a
visual-ideographic one, and the variable itself has a double origin.
With the emergence of the concept of variable in the 16th and 17th centuries,
this double root already became consciously visible as in Ramus' or Descartes'
confrontation with Euclid's Elements (Otte, 1984a). As opposed to Euclid,
Ramus preferred the verbal-numerical system of representation, since his first
concern was the dissemination and practical generalization of the mathematical
heritage from antiquity. With his 'methodization', Ramus also created aware-
ness of a new epistemology, thus achieving its breakthrough, which could be
briefly described by saying "the world can be known, because it is structured
homogeneously and thus is accessible to segmented explanation", and which
found its direct expression in the Cartesian concept of space. To provide every
point with a name, as Weyl has called Descartes' achievement, was a prerequi-
site for the idea of space as a whole.
It took however to the end of the 18th century until analytical geometry in the
modern sense was accomplished by Monge. The importance of Monge's
approach lay, as Boyer observes, "in the tendency to formalize the straight line
in ,analytic symbols". This postulation of the straight line as the basic element of
geometry, which was accomplished through an interaction of the numerical and
the ideographic codes, has in fact become the fundamental reference point in the
change and further development of geometry since the second half of the 18th
century. In the second volume of his Analytisch-Geometrische Entwicklungen
published in 1831, Pliicker writes: "In that Monge introduced the equation of the
straight line into analytical geometry, and thereby laid the foundation for the
banishment of all constructions from the same, he gave geometry that new form
that made its further development possible" (p. 4). Referring to the same subject,
Boyer comments: '~Fhe works of Monge on coordinate methods, in spite of the
fact that he was the greatest synthetic geometer of the age, remind one slrongly
of the analyst Lagrange in the virtual absence of diagrams. Lagrange and Monge
seem to have realized more fully than their predecessors how useful might be a
44 M. OTfE

complete alliance between analysis and geometry. Analytic geometry was

rapidly approaching a new state" (Boyer, 1956, 206).
Thus in fact arithmetics and geometry, both in combination and both serving
as instruments as well as fields of interpretation in this combination, together
represent a mode of generation of mathematical thought from antiquity till
today.

It is a common belief that the Pythagoreans were fascinated by the idea that all
natural phenomena seem guided by a higher logic which is expressed by number
and in the relations of numbers. The harmony of number relations served in
particular to grasp the essence of natural phenomena and to discover and
represent their concealed interrelationships. The Pythagorean orientation
believed that the "real" is the mathematical harmony that is present in nature and
that this harmony is real insight into the fundamental structure of the universe.
Just as well known is the shock Pythagorean philosophy suffered from the
discovery of the incommensurability of side and diagonal of the pentagon and
even of the square.
For a worldview which seeks access to the natural phenomena by measuring,
this shock is not easy to understand, as measuring is always a process of
approximation which tends to have an infinite number of stages. The question
then was, can we, at least in principle, make this process terminate. This cannot
be done constructively in the true sense, but demands conceptual arguments
also. Even this conceptualisations will not enable the mathematician to visualize
the whole. When studying infinite structure, he must always be aware that what
he sees is only a part of what there is to be seen.
It could be objected against Pythagoras that neither aristic nor scientific
thinking can thematize the question of the essence of things in a definite way
and as a symbolic expression chosen once and for all, but that essence itself
rather resembles a process which discloses the things of this world in infinite,
ever new forms. Knowing always implies two factors: something known and
that, as which it is known. This insight, not taken as an argument of a foun-
dationalist epistemology, implies the fact that any kind of cognitive realism is
based on the existence of essentially heterogeneous domains, which play
completely symmetrical roles in the evolution of thought. We are not advocating
a reductionist interpretation of the fact of knowing but, on the contrary, claim
that objectivity in mathematics depends on complementarity, namely on the
existence of other points of view.
It is an interesting fact that as stated in the introduction above, an intuitive
point of view, and a formal axiomatic point of view seem to amount to the same
thing, as long as one holds in some way or other a purely objective or purely
constructive conception of truth. If the intention is to remedy such a defect, a
system of axioms, for instance, should not be understood as an exhaustive
description of the intended object, but rather as some sort of window which
permits a glimpse at certain aspects of it, but which can never be made complete
and truly objective. The contrast between a-priori intuitionism as it was
 ARITHMETICAND GEOMETRY 45

expressed, in the history of mathematics, mainly in the intuition of the number

concept on the one hand, and axiomatic thinking in its definite claims on the
other, seems to be just as erroneous in hindsight as it is instructive for us today.

II. A CONTROVERSY ABOUT THE AXIOMATICS OF ARITHMETIC

With regard to the difference between arithmetic and geometry, Wang writes:
We are familiar with the two usual methods of developing mathematics: the genetic or
constructive approach customary in the extension of numbers to integers, fraction's
real numbers, complex numbers; and the axiomatic method usually adopted for the
teaching of elementary geometry. There are many differences between elementary
'textbooks of geometry and the sharper formulations of axioms of geometry, so that we
might wish to call the former intuitive axiomatics, the latter formal axiomatics. The
application of the axiomatic method in the development of numbers is not natural. Its
rather late appearance is evidence (Wang, 1970, 69).
The different status of arithmetic and geometry with regard to axiomatic
ch~xacterization will be our concern in the following, and recursion, of course,
plays a central role in this.
Hermann Grassmann's (1809-1877) Lehrbuch der Arithrnetik (1861) is, as
Wang remarks, probably the first "serious and rather successful attempt to create
an axiomatic foundation for numbers". Helmholtz (1871), Grassmann (1872),
Schr0~er (1873) and Stolz (1885) - all of them followed more or less explicitly
Grassmann's approach. In particular, recursive definitions for the basic arith-
methic operations began to appear frequently in the literature after Grassmann.
Wang also shows in detail that Grassmann's system of characterizing the
whole numbers essentially corresponds to the characterization "which is
customary in present day abstract algebra. According to the latter, integers form
an ordered integral domain in which a set of positive integers has a least
element" (Wang, 1970, 70).
In particular, Grassmann was probably the first to introduce recursive
relations into the axiomatics of arithmetic, and this is why Helmholtz has called
the recursive characterization of addition (and multiplication as well)
"Grassmann's axiom".
a+l=a*
(R) a + b* = (a + b)*
(where a* is the number 'following' a).
In a review of Robert Grassmann's Zahlenlehre in 1892, and in his 1899
inaugural lecture in Leipzig (Anschauung und Denken in der Geometrie), Otto
HOlder (1859-1937), who was a disciple of Kronecker and WeierstraB, had
called the reduction of arithmetic "to such simple foundations an important
merit of the Grassmann brothers". But at the same time he turned against
characterizing the description of an arithmetic procedure as an axiom, for the
deeper reason that he deemed the arithmetical activity to be a-prioric and not
46 M. OTrE

objective, and its formalized objectivation not productive. Several times HOlder
returned to this issue in general, as well as to the discussion of Grassmann's
views in particular, and over a period of more than 30 years (HOlder, 1892,
1899, 1901, 1914, 1924). Finally in his highly original book Die mathematische
Methode, which is, as v.d. Waerden stated it in his obituary to HOlder, a work
whose widespread neglect is in sharp contrast to its importance, he writes: "In
arithmetic, abstracting new general concepts forms, as it were, an element of
deduction, and the method we use for abstraction here is a process we do not
count among objective experience in the more restricted sense of the term, that
is insofar as it forms a contrast to thinking". In arithmetics, genesis and founda-
tion of a general concept are virtually congruent: "every method which can be
idefinitely continued yields a general concept and at the same time a rule valid
for this concept, whose correctness we grasp together with the reality of this
concept". This close connection of construction and result precludes that the
process of construction itself is regarded as an object known.
It is evident to HOlder "that we would receive an infinite number of axioms in
arithmetic, as any method which can be continued indefinitely will yield such an
axiom. Hence, I should like refrain from designating the formulae (R) which are
attained in this way (i.e. by recursion) as axioms". These arguments given by
HOlder for the non-axiomatic character of numerical relations are the same as
Kant's (Kant III, 20f). For HOlder, arithmetic is an a-prioric science, it is
intuitive in the sense of Kant's concept of "pure intuition".
In arithmetic "things seem to be different to me", HOlder writes in the review
already mentioned, "than in geometry, where basic concepts and principles do
not stem from such progressive processes as those used by deduction in
geometry just as well as in arithmetic. Whether we consider the geometrical
principles as evidences of intuition or, perhaps more correctly, as laws
abstracted from external exprience, in both cases the principles as well as the
basic concepts originate from a foreign realm. If we wish to consider the
formulae mentioned above as valid arithmetical axioms, we shall be compelled
to establish similar axioms for an inf'mite number of concepts from number
theory and analysis, and the set of arithmetical axioms will become infinite".
For HOlder, it is of prime importance that both the principles and the basic
concepts of geometry originate "from a foreign realm", irrespective of the
numerous controversies about their true nature and origin - that is, about the
question whether they must be considered to be "evidences of intuition" or
"laws abstracted from external experience", etc. "In any case, the entire structure
of geometry may be viewed independent of this question, studying which
assumptions geometry actually uses .... and observing how additional
knowledge is derived from these assumptions by a series of small and secure
steps, i.e. how the geometer proceeds deductively". This is the way the study of
the structure of geometric theory has been advanced (especially by Hilbert).
"Geometrical deduction itself has not yet been so thoroughly examined", as
HOlder remarks, and he stresses that the examination would end up with some
arithmetical concepts as the ultimate elements. Geometrical invention and proof
 AR1TI-LMETICAND GEOMETRY 47

of geometrical theorems use diagrams and drawings, experimenting with these

in order to find the appropriate auxiliary lines, for instance. As far as we make
explicit the facts represented by the drawings in axiomatic form, these experi-
ments would seem to be "thought experiments". But which is the proper way to
describe the activity itself?. What part is played "by intuition in deduction
itself"? By making all the intuitive assumptions explicit "it is possible to strip
geometrical deduction itself of intuition. If the geometrical elements, and the
operations using these elements, are designated by symbols and by arranging
these symbols in a row, just as numerical quantities and the operations executed
with them are represented symbolically, geometric deduction, in simpler cases,
can be completely dissolved into a symbolic calculus in just the same manner as
conclusions concerning numerical quantities can be accomplished by operating
with letters in algebra". In this connection, HOlder refers to the Leibnizian idea
of a universal characteristic or sign language. He believes, however, that this
method is not the proper path of geometrical inquiry. '~ latter is mostly
guided by images and intuitions, sometimes by observation.., that is by analogy
and induction, just as inductively obtained results in many cases determine the
direction, which the deductive argument takes in all fields of mathematics".
Thus, a certain contrast between the mode of research and that of presenta-
tion, between matter and form arises in geometry. The development and the
substantiation of knowledge forms a unity in arithmetic and stands in contrast in
geometry.
For HOlder as far as arithmetic is a science, which operates with a priori and
hence necessary sentences, the question as to alternatives and modifications
makes no sense, and the axiomatic explication which would permit such
modifications becomes irrelevant. Beth's statement which characterizes Kantian
intuitionism (with the exception of course that Neo-Kantianism accepts but one
foundation of mathematics, namely number) may be applied here as well:
The construction of a triangle and of a straight line parallel with one of its sides is not,
for Kant, a purely heuristic step, but forms an integral part of the demonstration. This
construction is essential since demonstration must "proceed through the intuition of
the object". Now the result of the construction will be determined not by the choice of
particular axioms, but on the conlxary, by the "general conditions of construction..."
Thus, even if we supressed all of Euclid's axioms, "we should come upon all the
'aheorems of Euclidean geometry through the power of intuition alone (Beth, 1966,
15).
Kant placed intuitive reasoning side by side with another type of reasoning
n~aely formal reasoning. The strength of mathematics lies according to him in
its intuitionism in the unity of construction and insight or proof, whereas
philosophy was the realm of formal reasoning. Now, at the end of the 19th
century, when geometry was emancipated from spatial intuition this intuitionism
and this unity seemed still to exist at least with respect to arithmetic. Expressed
in epistemic terms this means that the cognizing subject's activities became the
focus of formal reasoning in geometry as well as in arithmetic.
To make this a little clearer imagine a geometrical point in the sense of
48 M. OTYE

Euclid's description. It has no length, no width, it has no properties at all.

According to Leibniz' principle of the identity of indiscernables two such points
cannot be distinguished and therefore do not really exist at all (Leibniz'
principle consists in the thesis that there are no two substances which resemble
each other entirely but only differ numerically). Grassmann on the contrary
believed that geometrical points can be taken as a perfect instance to illustrate
distinction as a mere act of will with no motive or further reason. Leibniz'
principle implies that any distinction has to rely on differences in appearance.
For Leibniz "a mere will without any motive is a fiction, not only contrary to
God's perfection, but also chimerical and contradictory" (Leibniz-Clarke
correspondence).
In this manner the epistemology of mathematics has been changing from
classical ontologism to a conception in which the activity of the epistemic
subject occupies the central position. At the end of the 19th century this
understanding underwent some crisis as soon as mathematical subject matter
became so abstract that it could no longer be intuited directly, and as at the same
time mathematical specialization and division of labour became deeper.
In order to arrive at some new knowledge, mathematical activity cannot be
reduced to formal deductions. If the mathematical content were to be identified
with the definitions, subject matter and activity would completely be separated
in mathematics. The "axiomatic movement" therefore would possibly claim that
a complete and rigorous description of mathematical subject matter is a mere
fiction. Axiomatic theories are instead to be understood as exploratory devices
rather than mirrors of reality. Axioms are not statements about any outside
reality but are instruments, which allow to pass from the particular to the
general. An axiomatic description does not mirror any true facts but orients our
mental activity in its explorative endeavours.
It is worthwhile to stop at this point for a moment and (in the literal sense of
the word) to reflect H61der's views on those of another "intuitionist", who
believes that the arithmetical rules are a priori synthetic intuitions, namely Henri
Poincar6. Reasoning by recurrence is, writes Poincar6 in his 1903 Science and
Hypothesis, the "only instrument which enables us to pass from the finite to the
infinite" (p. 11). Without the idea of mathematical infinity however, "there
would be no science at all because there would be nothing general" (19. 11).
Recursion cannot be reduced to the principle of contradiction because it is not
analytic like the latter nor derivable from experience. It is "the affirmation of a
property of the mind itself" (p. 14). Contrary to this "the axioms of geometry are
only definitions in disguise" (p. 50). That means we are free to choose those
which seem convenient to us. We never can get rid of a true synthetic a priori
intuition, like recursiveness, whereas we are free to replace Euclidean geometry
by some non-Euclidean geometry.
Let us try to get rid of recursiveness, Poincar6 says, and "let us construct a
false arithmetic analogous to non-Euclidean geometry. We shall not be able to
do it" (p. 49). (HOlder uses a similar argument to illustrate the difference
between arithmetical statements and geometrical axioms (H61der, 1924, 7)
 ARITHMETIC AND GEOMETRY 49

without drawing the same conventionalist consequences).

'What is essentially missing in PoincarO's mathematical epistemology is the
idea of generalization and development based on subject matter. In mathematics
we know of other ways to generalize than by means of induction and we have
different forms of generality. We for instance also use variables in their
objectual reading i.e. in their referring to objects, which are not necessarily
specifiable individually.
These are objects of cognition which are, so to speak, not conceived of and
handled in terms of their names nor individual properties. Variables of this kind
as well as classes, sets or genera/concepts related to notions like "space" etc. are
instruments par excellence for generalization in terms of enlargement of
extension instead of enrichment of intension. Nelson Goodman has charac-
terized the different types of generalization (based on constructive vs. concep-
tual argument respectively) as follows:
A conceptual proof will often show that the hypothesis of the theorem can be
weakened, and that therefore the theorem is true about more structures than we
thought at first. A constructive proof, on the other hand, uses weaker logical mad
existential assumptions, and therefore may show that the theorem is true in more
framework than we thought at f'trst (Good.mart, 1983, 63).
If algebra is conceived as a theory of combinations, in the sense of Leibniz or
Grassmann, algebraic rules can be regarded as axioms, and then, according to
HOlder, "the analogy with geometry is complete. However, an essential
difference compared to geometry is that we are able to prove that ab = ba by
going back from algebraic formalism to the concept of number", and that we "go
back to the essence of the concept of number and the concept of multiplication."
HOlder was opposed to the view that for instance mathematical deduction
should be represented by symbolic calculation, as the reasons for introducing a
particular symbol could not themselves be expressed in the calculus. The
thinking in mathematics according to him is not so much supported by a logical
calculus or logistic based on symbols but by conceptual synthesis. He calls the
concepts involved "synthetic concepts". He writes:
a great number of new concepts are formed with the goal of conveying or proving
hidden properties of concepts that are already known. The forming of concepts thus
exactly constitutes a part of the proof. These self-formed concepts, which I shall call
synthetic concepts, are formed, or as we say, constructed in geometry ... from the
basic concepts stemming from experience or intuition (point, line. . . . ) ... However,
there are also concepts that arise without such particular assumptions, purely on the
basis of certain general logical activities of positing and cancelling, summarizing and
simultaneous separation, ranking, and seriation . . . . . These concepts, of which the
whole numbers are perhaps the most simple, I wish to call pure synthetic concepts (of.
1924, 6).

The pure synthetic concepts are then differentiated by HOlder from the
hypothetico-synthetic concepts, as he calls them, which occur in geometry and
which, always have something empirical to themselves (HOlder, 1924, 295).
According to HOlder, an important method, generally speaking, of introducing
50 M. OTrE

a synthetic concept, is by means of a recursive definition. HOlder, comes back

once more to the recursive definitions of the most familiar computable func-
tions, addition and multiplication, repeats his arguments to the effect that these
definitions may not be called axioms because, other then in the case of geometri-
cal axioms, these descriptions of algorithmic activity are not based on "external
assumptions" but are pure synthetic concepts in the sense outlined above
(HOlder, 1924, 299). But must we then not conclude that also geometrical
axioms are no more conceivable, because, as Grassmann had stressed, geometri-
cal thought is based on the very same synthetic concepts.
The difference between Grassmann and HOlder lies in the fact that HOlder
sees the combination of content level and axiomatic meta-level as being
intrinsically united in the arithmetical concepts: the concept is a unification of
object and operation. This becomes clear when HOlder, arguing in direct
opposition to Grassmann, points out that a theory of ordinal numbers "provides
no complete foundation for arithmetic, and not even for pure arithmetic, without
the further relationships lying in the concept of quantity." (cf. 1914, 15). He
illustrates this with the example of propositions from number theory that refer to
sets of numbers.
For Grassmann there exists always unity of object and operation as well as
contrast between both, in arithmetics as well as in geometry (remember his
remarks concerning unity and contrast of philosophy and mathematics).
Ultimately, HOlder must be understood as intending to say that intuition in
geometry, or the residue of it that cannot be dissolved in a formalization or in a
mechanical calculus, originates from arithmetic, and in particular from the
congruence of foundation and growth of knowledge based on "pure intuition".
To put this another way, insofar as a priori significance in geometry has a
mathematical character, it is based on the number concept. For HOlder, the
number concept is synthetic and a priori. It is a basic concept in mathematics.

IlL A RELATED CONTROVERSY OVER THE CHARACTER OF AN

EMPIRICAL THEORY

We shall reflect on the preconditions of a position that consists in making the

relationship between knowledge and reality the goal of epistemological con-
siderations, and not conceiving knowledge as part of the total activity, both
theoretical and experimental, of the epistemological subject.
The situation is clearly illustrated in a lecture by Einstein from 1921 entitled
Geometry and Experience. The contrast presented therein between Einstein's
and PoincarO's positions exactly reflects the contrast between an axiomatic
position and a conception oriented toward the relationship between knowledge
and reality.
Einstein begins his lecture by giving a precise answer to the question of the
relationship between mathematics and reality that appears to be so succinct and
final that any further consideration would appear to be only one further step in
 ARFITIMETICAND GEOMETRY 51

the wrong direction. At the same time, Einstein's statement contains a comment
on the role of modem axiomatic thinking.
As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as
they are certain, they do not refer to reality. It seems to me that complete clearness as
to this state of things f'trst became common property through that new departure in
mathematics which is known by the name of mathematical logic or 'Axiomatics'....
The view of axioms, advocated by modem axiomatics, purges mathematics of all
extraneous elements, and thus dispels the mystic obscurity which formerly surrounded
the principles of mathematics .... In axiomatic geometry the words "point", "straight
line", etc. stand only for empty conceptual schemata ...
Yet on the other hand it is certain that mathematics generally, and particularly
geometry, owes its existence to the need which was felt of learning something about
the relations of real things to one another .... To accomplish this we need only add the
proposition: - Solid bodies are related, with respect to their possible dispositions, as
are bodies in Euclidean geometry of three dimensions. Then the propositions of
Euclid contain affirmations as to the relations of practically-rigid bodies. Geometry
thus completed is evidently a natural science; ... I attach special importance to the
view of geometry which I have just set forth, because without it I should have been
~anable to formulate the theory of relativity (Einstein, 1953, 189-190).

Then Einstein notes that Poincar6 rejects the relationship between the "body"
of axiomatic, euclidean geomelry and the practically-rigid body of reality, and
that he therefore has to give priority to purely "knowledge-organizing" prin-
ciples, such as the principle o f economy of thought or the principle of simplicity,
in the selection o f geometric theories that are o f use to physics. " I f we deny the
relation between the practically-rigid body and geometry, we shall indeed not
easily free ourselves from the convention that Euclidean geometry is to be
retained as the simplest" (p. 191).
When trying to explain Poincar6's rejection o f the practically-rigid body as a
basic element of epistemological consideration, Einstein mentions the fact that
this involves an idealization that can only be approximately realized in reality.
Einstein circumvents this problem by treating the "practically-rigid body" as an
operative concept and not as an empirical abstraction. Or, to express this more
precisely, he sees that this concept, like other concepts (e.g., the concept o f ideal
gas or of absolutely black body), cannot be derived from empirical phenomena
through mere abstraction, as, strictly speaking, the extension o f these concepts is
empty: The particular significance of such theoretical concepts lies in their
explorative function.
Such a concept gained from idealization can only be introduced operatively
into thinking. In Einstein, this occurs according to the following principle:
All practical geometry is based upon a principle which is accessible to experience, and
which we will now try to realise. We will call that which is enclosed between two
boundaries, marked upon a practieaUy-rigid body, a tract. We imagine two practically-
JSgid bodies, each with a tract marked out on it. These two tracts are said to be 'equal
to one another' if the boundaries of the one tract can be brought to coincide per-
manently with the boundaries of the other. We now assume that: if two tracts are
found to be equal once and anywhere, they are equal always and everywhere (p. 192).
It is exactly the properties of the practically-rigid body expressed in this basic
52 M. OTrE

principle, and only these properties, that enter into the formation of theories in
physics. Insofar as this concerns a basic principle for experimental activity, it
adds an absolute element to the relational thinking of axiomatic geometry. This
moment of "absolute thinking" was defended by Einstein in a discussion at the
Preussische Akademie der Wissenschaften when H. Weyl proposed to general-
ize the relativity principle in a way which violated the principle of practical
geometry stated above (Weyl, Vol. 1/, 29-42; Vol. III, 336-345).
The "absolute elements" mentioned are however not to be understood as if
they were a special kind of indubitable and universal knowledge, comparable to
the characteristics of Kant's "transcendental subject". They are to be conceived
in a content related manner. Einstein himself, for instance, points out the fact
that his "proposed physical interpretation of geometry breaks down when
applied immediately to spaces of sub-molecular order of magnitude".
When a practical geometry is not in agreement with observations, agreement
may be restored either by substituting a different pure geometry - a different
axiom system - or by modifying the associated physical hypotheses. Poincar6
believed that, confronted with such a choice, scientists invariably would choose
to modify the physical hypotheses and to retain the more convenient Euclidean
geometry. Euclidean geometry is the more convenient for us, according to
Poincar6 because our intuitions and our habits are educated in that frame and
language. It is however important, to repeat the initial thesis once more, to see
what is objectively at the bottom of our related activities.

IV. OBJECTIVE ACTIVITY AS THE ORIGIN OF KNOWLEDGE

The scientist who has most clearly expressed the constructive, intuitive position
of Kant, and later, Kronecker, HOlder, or Poincar6 in current mathematical
education and also the philosophy of mathematics is Jean Piaget. It is therefore
useful to reflect on these scientific positions that have been so influential for
mathematical and scientific education if we want to learn something of educa-
tional value from them.
The central concept in Piaget's epistemology is the discrimination between
"relfective abstraction" (which proceeds from the actions and operations of the
subject) and "empirical abstraction" (which is directed at the objects of empiri-
cal reality). The reflective abstraction is necessarily constructive.
In fact, as opposed to empirical abstraction, which consists merely of deriving the
common characteristics from a class of objects (by a combination of abstraction and
simple generalisation), reflective abstraction consists in deriving from a system of
actions or operations at a lower level, certain characteristics whose reflection (in the
quasi-physical sense of the term) upon actions or operations of a higher level it
guarantees; for it is only possible to be conscious of the processes of an earlier
construction through a reconstruction on a new plane. This fact is not peculiar to
scientific thought, and it already characterises the whole development of intelligence
during the transition from a hierarchical stage to the one following it. In short,
 AP~'HMETICAND GEOMETRY 53

reflective abstraction proceeds by reconstructions which transcend, whilst integrating,

previous constructions (Piaget, 1966, 189).
Now this discrimination is not problematic, just the opposite, it introduces a
differentiation in the subject-object relation in the sense of genetic structuralism
(Piaget, 1974, 39 ff).
The only thing that is problematic in Piaget's conception is the fact that this
differentiation between empirical and reflective abstraction becomes an
immediate separation as a result of a concept of empirical abstraction that is too
primitive. This cuts in two exactly that which Piaget considers the advantage of
the operative approach, namely, the unity of subject and object based on
objective activity. One has to emphasize that theoretical consciousness demands
to conceive the objects and phenomena of reality not just in the form of
knowledge and contemplation but as parts of activity also (cf. Einstein's
understanding of the "rigid body" described above), and of determining this
activity.
In our description of the relationship between arithmetic and geometry, we
have assumed that the relationship between the conceptual-reflective and the
algorithmic-logical elements of mental activity is only conceivable as an
interaction of two poles of a relationship the basis of which is the activity. The
activity and not consciousness or knowledge represents the essence of the
subject-object relation. Especially when referring to logic, fully developed
conceptual thinking is characterized by permanently providing the possibility of,
and the precondition for, the application of strictly logical argumentation. In this
way the constructive element simultaneously develops the precision of concep-
tual meaning. The above discussion on axiomatic thinking should be understood
in this sense.
On the one hand, Piaget seems to accept this symmetry. For example, he
characterizes the role of formal logic throught the example of the principle of
contradiction in the following way: "In fact the principle of contradiction
reduces to a negation of the simultaneous acceptance and rejection of one and
the same property. A and not-A are incompatible. However, in the actual
thinking of a person, the difficulties only begin when one asks oneself whether
one has the right to assert A and B simultaneously, for nowhere is it unequivo-
cally written in logic whether or not B implies not-A. For example, can we talk
about a mountain that is less than i00 meters high, or is this a contradiction?"
(cf. Beth and Piaget, 1966, 35 ff). On the other hand, Piaget's concept of
reflective abstraction particularly expresses the enormous importance of logical-
mathematical structures for the formation of the operative position.

As, in contrast to the logical-mathematical abstraction, Piaget considers physical

abstraction to be nonconstructive, the tension between the two poles - the
"constructive" and the "intuitive" aspect of all scientific as well as logical-
mathematical concepts - is resolved, and both aspects stand alongside one
another as unrelated characteristics of two different classes of scientific
concepts.
54 M. OTTE

Piaget admits that, "the problem o f the relations between deductive mathe-
matics and the experimentally given content" remains unresolved in his theory.
"Which interactions arise if the subject begins to think deductively, and at the
same time begins to experiment?" (Piaget, 1974, 117). Thus the essential
malaise, namely, all vacillation between apriorism and empiricism that has so
persistently concerned the epistemological discussion since Kant, remains
unresolved.
Van Hiele attacks the insufficiently grounded relation of the learning process
in the concept of reflective abstraction when he states: " ... our first doubts
about Piaget's theory concern his use of the word 'logical'; his use suggests that
thinking proceeds on one level" (Van Hiele, 1970, 123f). The level concept is
understood here in the sense of a fixed hierarchization of knowledge. "The core
of the level concept is ... that the objects are something completely different on
different levels in one and the same science, and the result of this is that persons
who talk on different levels are often unable to understand one another" (p.
109).
The precise significance of a hierarchization in the sense of van Hiele, or in
the sense of Russel's logical type theory, is that it does not give a one-sided
direction for the development of knowledge; either a simple, constructive,
bottom-up development in the sense of Piaget's reflective abstraction, or in the
sense of an empirical induction, or even a simple top-down development in the
sense of a deduction from a priori given axioms or concepts. Piaget's dilemma
can also be understood to mean that there is a difference between existence and
constructability in theoretical thinking. This difference is also decisive for
mathematics.
Next, we shall turn again to van Hiele's argumentation against Piaget. "It is
clear, for example, that 'cat', 'rose', and 'egg' can be found on the basic level of
biology, but that 'heritability', 'instinct', and 'metabolism' find their place on a
higher level in the network of relations" (Van Hiele, 110). In my opinion,
however, this is not definitely the case. Knowledge is not a thing with a fixed
structure: Concrete and abstract continually change places. The starting point
('cat'), in other words the concrete, becomes the goal of knowledge: It becomes
the task, by which it shows itself to be abstract, and, vice versa, the abstract
(e.g., 'instinct') becomes the instrument, the means, to attain that goal of
knowledge, to master that task, that is, it becomes the concrete. In the final
count, to define a concept means to develop it.
This relation between hierarchization and the genetic perspective is expressed
in a particular way in the so-called system paradoxes. "Any given system can be
adequately described provided it is regarded as an element of a larger system.
The problem of presenting a given system as an element of a larger system can
only be solved if this system is described as a system" (Blauberg et al., 1977,
270).
Blauberg and his co-authors interpret this and other similar paradoxes as a
certain contradictoriness of a process evolving in time. They write:
 ARITHMETICAND GEOMETRY 55

... we should speak of the fundamental relativity of any systems description. Of

course, systems thinking, as any other form of knowledge, is subject to the general
philosophical principle of the relativity of truth, but what we want to stress here is that
each relatively isolated fragment of systems knowledge itself can be construed only in
connection with other fragments, and its relative truth is, so to speak, embedded and
realized in it (p. 282).
Within mathematics itself Piaget's problem of the difference between
existence and constructability can be understood in the sense that the construc-
tive process must be given on another level of the type or form of the results that
the construction aims at, or the pattern that guides the essential distinctions must
be given. For example, Cantor's diagonal procedure shows that any algorithm
counting all the real numbers defeats itself because it gives rise to real numbers
not counted by it. Kuyk formulated this epistemological requirement for the
formation of concepts by stating "that the shape of the objects that are going to
foma a set has to be made clear in advance. The word 'shape' then, may be taken
in the geometrical-kinematical sense as well as in the arithmetical sense" (Kuyk,
144). To give another elementary example. Only if I have defined 'n' concep-
tually, as a relationship between circle and square, do I get access to a rich
variety of determining numerical approximations of it.

V. ZENO'S PARADOXES AND COMPLEMENTARITY

The classical example that clearly demonstrates the complementarity of

arithmetic and geometry or of the discrete and the continuous in the above-
mentioned sense comes from Zeno's paradox of Achilles and the tortoise. You
can find this paradox in any school textbook of mathematics. It is paraphrased
by Black as follows:
Suppose Achilles runs ten times as fast as the tortoise and gives him a hundred yards
start. In order to win the race Achilles must first make up for his initial handicap by
runnkng a hundred yards; but when he has done this and has reached the point where
the tortoise started, the animal has had time to advance ten yards. While Achilles runs
these ten yards, the tortoise gets one yard ahead; when Achilles has run this yard, the
tortoise is a tenth of a yard ahead; and so on, without end. Achilles never catches the
tortoise, because the tortoise always holds a lead, however small.
Zeno's problem is a paradox of movement. In physics, movements are
understood as continuous functions of time in three-dimensional space g(t) =
(x(O, y(t), z(t)), with t as a time parameter: "We talk of a movement when the
(space) coordinates of the body change over the course of time" states a
randomly selected physics textbook. The continuous function as a model of
movement actually very clearly reflects the double character of this concept: On
the one hand, it contains discrete aspects, such as it permits me to calculate
single values when it is written as a formula. On the other hand, it emphasizes
continuous aspects, for example, in the illustration of the functional graph that
permit me a qualitative overall idea of the function (= movement). The function
is simultaneously both qualitative and quantitative; conceptual and constructive.
56 M. OTI'E

It is knowledge (overall idea) and tool (calculation formula) in one.

Zeno wanted to know the movement perceived and "measured" at set, given
positions, at points whose distances converge toward zero.

x0=0
xn+~ = 1/lOx n + 1 Stadion
for n = 0, 1....
He disguises this procedure for "measuring" movement in the above story:
When Achilles is a t x n, the tortoise is already atxn+ 1 > xn!
Here he exposes his audience to the fallacy that places the one-sided discrete
view of movement in comrast to knowledge about the continuous course
together with the knowledge that the slower one must finally be overtaken by
the faster despite such a large start. If we accept this exclusively discrete
approach, we agree that Achilles must first reach all the points that the tortoise
has already reached (by which the tortoise is naturally always a little bit further
in front!). So what we are actually saying is that Achilles can reach only these
points, that these are quasi the only positions that he c ~ reach, or at least the
only ones that determine his position. We quasi encapsulate Achilles' movement
within that of the tortoise, we chain it to the latter. Yet who or what prevents
Achilles from running two or three stadiums (for the tortoise has obviously only
crawled through one stadium plus one which was his inital lead, and he has
remained a long way behind)? We have to symmetrize our perspective by
adopting a relational point of view. Precisely speaking, the task is as follows:
Achilles runs ten times as fast as the tortoise, though the tortoise has a one
stadium start. For each of the stages, x(x > 0), covered by Achilles, the tortoise
has crawled the distance
f(x) = 1/10x + 1 stadium.
This function as a model of the movement (or rather the relative movement of
the tortoise to the "standing" position of Achilles) now enables us to reproduce
the paradox on a new level because of its double character: The continuous
aspect of the movement does not contradict the discrete perspective. It remains
correct that the tortoise is at xn+~ as soon as Achilles has reached xn, but it is first
the representation using the function concept that enables us to free Achilles'
movement from the one-sided fixation on the discrete x i (i = 0, 1. . . . ), and also
to see the movement as a whole.
The relative movement of Achilles and the tortoise is a linear function, as
both movements are uniform: f(x) = ax + b (i.e., when Achilles reaches x, the
tortoise is at f(x)). The problem: "At what point does Achilles really catch up
with the tortoise?" is now: "What is the fixed point off(x)?" The fixed point o f f
can be calculated simply as a function of the constants a and b:

x =f(x) = ax + b.
We seemingly have solved the problem by taking a relational point of view, that
means by adopting a "world view" which provides objects and relations between
 ARITHMETIC AND GEOMETRY 57

objects with an equal ontological status. This essentially makes up for what has
been called a transition from thinking about objects to relational thinking in the
introduction above. This transition took place at the end of the 18th century
only.
In what sense is this a solution? Does this equation not contain a paradox in
itself because quantities and functions are of different logical type (Mehlberg,
1961). We speak, as Menger has repeatedly pointed out (Menger, 1979, 139), of
the logarithm of the temperature but cannot speak of the temperature of the
logarithm. This problem may be resolved by adopting a permanent symbol 'i'
for the identity function, thereby rewriting the above equation as i(x) =f(x). Two
different points of view are feasible now. The constructive perspective, starting
from the assumption that all objects (geometrical points) are different (compare
Grassmann's view quoted above) tries to construct all concepts (functions) and
all knowledge from that assumption. The identity of a function (the identifica-
tion of concepts) is established by rephrasing the above equation as follows: if
f(x) = g(x) for all x, t h e n f = g. This direction of interest is contained in Zeno's
arguments. The constructive approach aims at i =f, i.e. no movement is possible.
The conceptual approach on the contrary tries to establish difference of
objects by means of concepts (functions). It would rewrite the above equation in
the formf(x) =f(y), to find out under which conditions it follows that x = y. This
approach is, by the way, expressed in Leibniz' principle of the identity of
indiscernibles, a principle which in a sense is the counterpart to his principle of
continuity (to be mentioned below). The principle of indiscernibles consists in
the thesis that there are no two substances which resemble each other entirely
but only differ numerically because then their complete concepts would
coincide. From this principle Leibniz has concluded that all points are identical,
or rather that geometrical points do not exist.
The constructive perspective, starting from difference and discreteness,
intends to argue that motion is impossible (but i =fpresupposes i(x) =f(x) for all
x), whilst the conceptual approach shows the existence of an individual fixed
point. It is however not able to identify it without the assistance of constructive
calculation.
The paradox of the movement leads to a complementarity in the concept of
"function". The above transformation shows the necessity of having the concept
of the functional relation, the concept of the function as an idea, as a conceptual
model. Atiyah writes: "That which was new about the mathematical concept of
function was to regard it as a single mathematical object" (ORe, 1974, 206); and
secondly, to have available the effectiveness of symbolic calculation (stemming
from Vieta and Descartes), that allow us to write down the meeting point
simply, and as far as the meaning is concerned, almost as a postulate.
How did these perceptions interact in fostering the development of the
function concept? How for instance is the identity of the function as an abstract
entity defined? I repeat my formal argument from above in somewhat modified
historical terms. First we have to bestow on the concept of function certain
properties, for instance continuity. What then is a continuous function? Con-
58 M. OTYE

tinuity amounts to the intuition that small variations on the "input" side should
result in small variations of "outputs". This idea links the function concept to the
concept of natural law, a fact expressed in Leibniz' principle of continuity.
There is some circularity hidden here as we do not know what is meant by the
law of continuity. Is it directed towards the functional relation or towards the
domain with respect to which it is established? Nothing was in fact more
ambiguous in Euler's time than the expression continuous function. In 1748
Euler characterized as continuous those functions, which are capable of being
represented by a single algebraic or analytical expression.
At the end of the 18th century however, it began to be clear that the notion of
functional correspondance contained much more than was apparent in the
analytic relation in which it usually found expression (Boutroux, 1920; Grattan-
Guinness, 1970). Nevertheless the habit of handling arithmetical inequalities,
which was established during this period of dominance of the "analytical"
approach, made the definition of continuity, due to Cauchy, possible, which is
found in all textbooks of to-day. Cauchy as Grattan-Guinness states, "was not
extending the use of the term continuity to functions with comers but reformulat-
ing the old Eulerian algebraic sense in arithmetical terms" (Grattan-Guinness,
1970, 50).
Cauchy effectively employed however a number of techniques which
Lagrange, who was the crucial figure between 18th- and 19th century points of
view, had used, within his algebraic-analytical approach to the calculus. For
instance Lagrange's Equations Numeriques "for the first time presented the
study of algebriac approximations and the corresponding inequality techniques
as a coherent subject" (Grabiner, 1981, 64). These inequality techniques were
vital for Cauchy's definition of continuous function.
Cauchy's definition of continuity exhibits the same kind of circularity as that
expressed by Leibniz' metaphysics. Cauchy's definition of a continuous
function on the one hand presupposes very general notions of functional
correspondence in the sense described above. On the other hand it provides
these notions with mathematical meaning by expressing them within the more
specific context of an arithmetized version of the notion of continuity.
The self-referentiality however has now been elevated to the level of mathe-
matical theory without any further recourse to ontology or metaphysics. The
development of function theory and analysis since Cauchy is usually even
described as an escape from both the deceptive evidence of spatial intuition and
the fetters of the arithmetical or analytic expression. It seems appropriate to
qualify such views by stating that the "escape" amounted rather to a deepening
of the related perceptions by employing each to develop the other in a com-
plementarist fashion.

The "complementaristic solution" of Zeno's paradox particularly shows that a

certain solution to a problem will never force itself upon us, but that we have to
choose the solution according to our view of the specific type of a problem.
Things never speak to us in an unequivocal way, and, because of this, absolute
 ARITHMETICAND GEOMETRY 59

insight or intuition does not exist. This is very often misjudged. It is exactly the
phenomenologically inspired search for an insight instead of the simple
technical presentation of our questions that has stimulated and inspired interest
in the various paradoxes of thinking since the second half of the 19th century.
For example, the well-known Gestalt psychologist Max Wertheimer
(1880--1943) comments on the presentation and solution of Zeno's paradoxes by
means of a geometric series that is current in presentday mathematics. Or rather
he comments on the current proofs of the convergence of that series, which is
accomplished by multiplying the series by a and subslracting afterwards.
It is correctly derived, proved, and elegant in its brevity. A way to get real insight into
the matter, sensibly to derive the formula is not nearly so easy; it involves difficult
steps and many more. While compelled to agree to the correcmess of the above
proceeding, there are many who feel dissatisfied, tricked. The multiplication of (1 + a
+ a 2 + a 3 + ...) by a together with the substraction of one series from the other, gives
the result; it does not give understanding of how the continuing series approaches this
'value in its growth. Real understanding proceeds by considering what happens in the
growth of the series and derives the law of this growth, leading to the limit. Many do
not bother really to understand. They are satisfied to have the result.
There are theorems in mathematics for which we have at this time only "external"
solutions because the problems are still too comphcated for constructive understand-
ing. Extreme are certain cases of the so-called negative, indirect proof in which the
principle of the excluded middle is used, showing that the opposite assumption is
impossible, leads to contradictions, yet without any possibility of seeing how the
positive solution comes about constructively (Wertheimer, 1945).
As an appendix to his book Wertheimer presents his solution of the problem,
together with a train of thought leading to that solution. The essential characteris-
tic of these consists in his relying on the meaning of some relevant concepts
(fraction etc.). "If I want to understand", he says, "I must realize from the
beginning what the first term 1/a means as a part of its whole" (p. 218).
It thereby seems that a conceptual argument is contrasted with symbolic
manipulations, which however also demand experience and understanding of the
entities employed. Wertheimer considers this second type of insight "not
sufficient to reach the solution by way of structural understanding" (p. 221). I
believe however that the psychological differences of the two different solutions
are of minor importance. They are just questions of taste and style and in fact
demand the same kinds of cognitive capabilities. The essential difference is to
be sought elsewhere, namely in the fact, that Wertheimer's approach is
"foundationalist" insofar as it reduces a problem concerning one concept A
("series") to the meaning of another one B ("fraction"). Whereas a complemen-
tarist approach would stress the symmetrical aspects of conceivable relations
between A and B. We can for instance, interpreting a periodical decimal fraction
(B) as a geometric series (A) directly prove that these decimal fractions are
rational numbers.
60 M. OTFE

VI. CONCLUDING REMARKS

Research is always addicted to the idea of progress. From the perspective of

research, science appears to be a great number of incommensurable theories, and
as a plurality of the most different arguments and activities that cannot be given
a common denominator. In education in contrast, we start with ideas of an
overall framework or from generally binding goals that are necessarily thought
out in relative contrast to progress. From the perspective of a scientific educa-
tion, science appears to be unified, general, and closed. Bruner's concept of the
"structure of the discipline" clearly expresses this perspective when applied to
mathematics and the natural sciences. Science as research is constructive,
pluralistic and contingent. Science as education is reflective and seeks coherence
and determination. Science is experiental and contingent. Education seeks
rational explanations.
Modern large-scale technologies are changing society into a laboratory.
Society has become an experimentation field for complex technologies. Nuclear
power plants are being sold as well-developed products by industry.... But none of
the 300 existing nuclear power plants are identical and their safety cannot be tested
under real extreme conditions ... Technical innovation and social and political
implementation therefore become identical: Each nuclear power plant is its own test
case. It may be eategorized as an implicit experiment, and its most revealing case is
the accident (Krohn/Weingart, 1987, 52).
And because society is becoming a laboratory, this model of the epistemologi-
cal process from the mathematical and experimental sciences will become the
universal behavior pattern. This pattern was formed within a context that
permitted a strict separation between the subject and the object of knowledge,
and its requires this separation. However, such a requirement is generally not
met even in the field of education and certainly not in the fields that shape
societal life. We could say that it is exactly the heading "society as a laboratory"
that embodies a universalization of the complementarity of form and historicity,
of structure and process, and so forth that gives another character to the whole
problem, because we are simultaneously subjects or creators, as well the ones
who are affected by the creations. This is why we are currently engaged in the
general search for a new way of thinking. And, as a rule, we seek this new way
of thinking by once more separating and contrasting the two sides of theoretical
conceptualisation and technical construction: We separate science into education
and research, or into a knowledge-oriented and a application-oriented science, or
into a-prioristic meta-knowledge and empirical knowledge. We say that
knowledge-oriented science has a philosophical and cultural significance similar
to religion or the arts, while the application-oriented science should change and
improve the external living conditions of humanity and human society. Other
considerations tend toward the deduction of the necessity to stop scientific
progress altogether because of the inseparability of the fields mentioned.
However, complementarity only means difference and relation simultaneously.
This brings me to the point that it was precisely the educational context that
 ARITHMETICAND GEOMETRY 61

enabled us to experience this complementarity at an early stage; that is, even

before the strict differentiation of subject and object became a problem for
research in quantum physics and Niels Bogr had to introduce the concept of
cornplementarity.

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