Fréchet On The Constitution of Abstract Spaces

LUIS CARLOS ARBOLEDA and LUIS CORNELIO RECALDE
FRÉCHET AND THE LOGIC OF THE CONSTITUTION OF

ABSTRACT SPACES FROM CONCRETE REALITY
1. FRÉCHET AND POINCARÉ ’ S CONVENTIONALISM
In several of his works Fréchet made important commentaries on Poin-

caré’s ideas on such topics as conventionalism, mathematical language,
intuition and logic, and geometry and experience. In this part of our study
we will refer to the relation between these ideas, how both of them have
been conceptualised, mainly with regard to the nature and function of con-
ventions in mathematics. Nevertheless, beyond the record of a similarity of
ideas that becomes evident, what interests us most at the present time, is to
identify the difficulties encountered (at least those faced by Fréchet), when
trying to defend the conventionality position, researchers were gradually
led to elucidate more fundamental problems, particularly the problem of
understanding those acts of reasoning that allow the cognitive subject to
formulate and to study mathematical entities as conventions. They were
also led to attempt to clarify the genetic relation between mathematical
conventions and empirical reality. We will begin by a quick revision of
some publications which throw light on the subject in order to locate this
issue within the philosophical and intellectual context of the time.
1.1. The Practical Value of Science Down the Centuries

Poincaré belongs to the generation of philosophers and scientists that, at
the end of the XIX century and the beginning of the new millennium,
openly participated in the debates about the new philosophical and epi-
stemological tendencies in science and mathematics, in particular, on the
problem of the genesis of knowledge from experience, and the debates
on the practical value of science. They also reflected on the relationships
between intuition and logic that were gaining such importance at a time
in which the movement of the arithmetisation of analysis was becoming
consolidated. We will begin by referring to the first two of these tendencies.
Synthese 134: 245–272, 2003.

© 2003 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.
246 LUIS CARLOS ARBOLEDA AND LUIS CORNELIO RECALDE
Around the year 1900, in contrast to ideas of a static reason, only

committed to the rigorous study of eternal truths, intellectuals such as
Nietzsche, Boutroux and Bergson, as also the so-called empiricist critics
(Avenarius and Mach)1 were promoting different intellectual values, which
were more closely related to action and to life as primary realities. As Leo
Freuler2 has recalled, at the turn of the century science could no longer es-
cape from practical impositions. In contrast to neo-Kantian intellectualism,
expressed for instance by Leon Brunschvicg, philosophers like Edouard
Le Roy argued that “thought should be lived to be fruitful”, that “it is
only known by its action” and that “knowledge is less the contemplation
of a clarity than the effort and movement to descend down to the intimate
darkness of things and to fit into the rhythm of its original life”3 .
For this intellectual view it is not possible to continue defending the
thesis that the laws of logic and mathematics, like the laws of nature, are
natural and eternal truths. On the contrary, the former would constitute
instead of a language – a type of “intellectual shorthand” (James) – in-
vented by man to register his observations of natural phenomena. On the
other hand, the knowledge of the laws of nature is not a natural agreement
between human understanding and nature, as man thinks and registers
such observations according to his practical needs. It is better to consider
the correspondence between this knowledge and natural phenomena from
the perspective of an agreement among human beings. We are then here
– according to Freuler – before one of the original sources of that con-
ventionalism of which Poincaré figures as one of its most characteristic
defenders.
1.2. The Conventional Character of Geometry in Poincaré

Poincaré’s position with respect to the nature of the geometry’s axioms4
is well known. These are not synthetic a priori judgements, as Kant re-
quired from arithmetic propositions (whose true example is the principle
of induction). If they were, they would impose on our understanding in
such a way, that they would make it impossible to conceive an axiomatic
in an opposite sense, on base of which to erect a theoretical construction
like non-Euclidean geometry.5 Furthermore, geometrical axioms are not
experimental facts. Ideal straight lines or circumferences cannot be exper-
imented with in the same way as material objects. In his 1895 publication
about space and geometry,6 Poincaré would make this approach more
explicit establishing the distinction between geometrical space and repres-
entative space. This is based on sensorial experiences (visual, tactile, and
motor) and on associations among them. Geometrical space on the other
hand, corresponds to a more complex level of conceptualisation and of
FRÉCHET AND THE LOGIC OF THE CONSTITUTION OF ABSTRACT SPACES 247
organisation of the sensations, compared with representative space. What

geometry borrows from experience, are the properties of (ideal) bodies
that inhabit representative space. This is the aim of geometry: the laws of
displacements of bodies, not the bodies themselves. The concept of a group
of transformations to which the study of geometry is applied,7 pre-exists
in our understanding. It is presented to us rather as a form of our under-
standing than as a form of our sensitivity. As it is not possible to consider
geometry as experimental science, its axioms are therefore conventions:
Our choice among all possible conventions is guided by experimental facts but remains
free and only responds to the necessity of avoiding all contradiction. For this reason its
postulates can be rigorously valid, even though the experimental laws that have determined
its adoption are only approximations.8
It is convenient to note the historical character of this affirmation. Poincaré

says that once they are adopted with the help of experience, geometrical
propositions are subject to a demand for freedom which can only be
conditioned by the principle of non-contradiction. Thus, Poincaré makes
geometry comply with one of the most important epistemological canons
regarding the rigour and arithmetisation of the mathematics movement
in the second part of the XIX century. Hankel, Dedekind, but above all
Cantor, have insisted that mathematics can be defined in relation to other
sciences, precisely because is a free creation of our understanding. Cantor
stated that the essence of mathematics is found in its freedom, and that on
this aspect, its simple and inhibited character depends precisely:
Mathematics is completely free in its development, and only knows of one obligation (. . . ):
its concepts must be non-contradictory in themselves and, moreover, they must relate to
concepts which have been previously formed, already present and secured, with fixed rules
regulated by definitions.9
Given its conventional character, one geometry can derive from another
(regardless of how contradictory its axioms can be) providing the defini-
tions are adequately chosen. Therefore, for Poincaré there is not sense in
asking oneself if Euclidean geometry is truer than other. It is – and will
continue to be – the most comfortable one. In the first place because it is
the most simple. No in terms of the intuition we have of Euclidean space,
but as far as a first grade polynomial is simpler than a second grade one, or
straight line trigonometry is simpler than spherical trigonometry. Second,
the Euclidean geometry is the most comfortable as it agrees quite well
with the properties of natural solids of the sensitive experience.10 Marco
Panza11 has observed that Poincaré does not have a logical explanation of
the notion of comfort. That maybe owing to the fact that Poincaré’s thought
shows difficulties in satisfactorily explaining the process from which the
“geometrical hypothesis” are constructed from experience. Poincaré does
not tell us how it is that – from the experience of our physical displacement
– our understanding arrives at the mathematical expression of Euclidean
distance as a characteristic notion of the Euclidean group of transform-
ations. This type of explanation is necessary in order to understand (by
means other than intuition, as required by Poincaré himself), that Euc-
lidean geometry is more comfortable than other groups such as those of
Riemann’s or Lobatschewski’s. Another difficulty related with the previous
one is Poincaré’s refusal to accept that the geometrical hypothesis can be
placed within the Kantian classification of analytical or synthetic a priori
or a posteriori judgements. According to Panza it is due to the fact that
for Poincaré the nature of conventions, escapes logical explanation for all
acts of knowledge. Poincaré’s conception would state that individuals have
the mental capacity to develop conventions; the intervention of experience
would consist in offering the signal and providing the opportunity for this
capacity to materialise.
1.3. Intuition and Logic in Poincaré

More elements could be found in favour of this last interpretation of Poin-
caré’s ideas on logic and intuition expressed in his famous communication
to the second international congress of mathematicians (Paris 1900).12 For
Poincaré logic and intuition each fulfill a necessary role. As instrument of
demonstration, it corresponds to logic to ensure certainty. Intuition is, for
its part, the instrument of invention. There are different types of intuition:
“in the first place, the type that is based on senses and imagination; next,
generalisation by induction, copied in a certain sense from the procedures
of experimental science; finally, we have the intuition of the pure number”.
This last is the foundation of the principle of mathematical induction (in
Poincaré’s opinion the true synthetic a priori judgement), and breeds “true
mathematical reasoning”.13 In front of the two forms of intuition, arith-
metic intuition is the only one capable of giving us certainty. Apparently
in agreement with the intellectual tendencies of the time, Poincaré does not
refer to the synthesis criterion that Kant developed in the Introduction to
the Critique of Pure Reason. Although it is not clear what his criterion is,
Poincaré at least wanted to show when he stated that the arithmetic propos-
itions are synthetic a priori, that they are based on something that we could
understand as a certain assumption a priori to which human beings are led
by reason of its intrinsic nature.14 Thus, this type of intuition is based on
a purely intellectual certainty. The principle of the human mind that rules
it is mathematical intuition. Otte has insisted that for Poincaré logic and
number intuition are functionally related only to the subject and not to ob-
jective reality. Poincaré proceeded in a similar way to Dedekind, for whom
the certainty of arithmetic depends totally on our (mental) ability to prove

the existence of an infinite system, by infinite repetition of mental acts.15
It means, that the safest intuitions from the mathematical point of view are
not related to an object of concrete reality, but to the mind of the individual.
This position, is to some extent contrary to the Kantian tradition, in the
sense that all knowledge is knowledge of something. Knowledge is, above
all related functionally to a reality. According to Kant, the subject’s active
role in his perception of the world, makes knowledge both an activity
of human reason and a function of inputs coming from external reality.
Therefore:
Intuition depends on experience and experience emerges when the subject is confronted
with something external to his own mind (. . . ) Poincaré, on the contrary, started from
mathematical psychology leaving aside the objective character of the cognitive. As we
have already pointed out, cognition always attempts to understand and explain the nature
of mathematics in terms of mathematicians’ activities, without assuming the existence of
(mathematical) objects.16
1.4. Fréchet’s Opposition to Poincaré’s Ideas on Intuition

For his part, Fréchet strongly opposed to the conception of Poincaré on
number intuition, although without mentioning indirectly and without en-
tering into a polemic discussion with him. In fact, the ideas to which we
are going now to refer, and that according to him were presented in the
Entretiens de Zurich do not appeared in the proceedings of that meeting.
Fréchet argues that not because in an axiomatized theory arithmetization is
imposed, and that intuitive representations or the referents of the physical
world are excluded in their logical development, that we may affirm that
theory has been exclusively developed for our understanding. Arithmetic
could not be “a town impenetrable by the external noises, where the pure
spirit reigns”. The integer number is not an spontaneous creation of a logic
spirit away from contingencies. On the contrary, is a schematic expression
of a common characteristic of several collections. In the same way as the
concept of mass is a common characteristic of certain collections of differ-
ent bodies. Furthermore, the integer number is the “fundamental scientific
notion that was first separated from the complications of human bargaining
not because necessarily it was the simplest, but because it was the most
useful”.17 In respect to the notion of countably finite, Fréchet says that
the notion of countably infinite sequence does not appeared in the mind
through the intervention of the pure intuition of mathematical induction.
Is precisely the opposite. Initially the infinite successions of integer num-
bers were accepted in arithmetic for the same reasons as the Euclidean
straight lines are accepted: both are comfortable schematisations of con-
crete objects. Later, “from the moment we introduced the consideration

of integer numbers, the principle of complete induction is legitimised”.18
Fréchet thought he had thus eliminated the radical separation established
by Poincaré between the three categories of intuition. To each of these,
the character of conformable conventions can be applied which geometry
hypothesis have when they are based on experience. The rules of logic
themselves are for Fréchet a product of our experience. An axiomatic is a
schematisation which is essentially revisable from the practical rules of
reasoning. If we accept these rules from our predecessors, is precisely
because our daily experience teach us that if we applied them correctly,
we would never make mistakes. Later, we will study Fréchet’s ideas on
inductive synthesis that led mathematical thought from the concrete to the
abstract. This concept, allows Fréchet to elude the concept of synthetic
a priori judgement. Somehow in this inductive synthesis the reasoning
abstracts, gradually, from the complexity of things, the simple principles
that constitute the basis of a deductive theory. Therefore, deductive theory
is not a spontaneous creation. It is only because of a persistent delusion
in the mentality of mathematicians throughout history, that it was believed
that:
The immediate data of consciousness’, the synthetic a priori judgement, themselves lead
to the formulation of the axioms that are the starting point of the deductive theory.19
1.5. “Natural” Conventions and “Comfortable” Conventions in Fréchet

We will now follow Fréchet in his attempt to scrutinise “from a closer point
of view”, according to his words, Poincaré’s thought on conventionalism.20
We will point out in passing that this scrutiny is necessary for him, as
in his opinion there has been attempts to relegate Poincaré to a simple
defender of nominalistic positions that give definitive and absolute value to
the scientific constructions. Fréchet probably refers to those like Federigo
Enriques, who strongly reacted at the beginning of this century to nomin-
alistic conceptions.21 Enriques would easily agree with Poincaré in that the
postulates of pure geometry symbolise positional relationships of bodies.
Nevertheless, agreement ceased when Poincaré – according to Enriques –
went so far as to state that such geometrical properties do not corresponds
to true facts. Instead, they constitute a simple system of conventions that
expresses physical facts, in the same way as magnitudes are related in a
measurement system. The system can be comfortable, agrees Enriques, but
there is nothing to stop us from changing it. “To ask oneself if a phenomena
is possible in a certain geometric system and impossible in the opposite
system, is to ask oneself if there are lengths that are expressed by metres
and not by English feet”. Enriques can not accept this type of reasoning,
as, in his opinion, the conceptual validity of pure geometrical proposi-
tions, – that at the same time represent (even though only approximately)
certain entities of the physical world – is not a sufficient condition for
these propositions to be the subject of arbitrary choice in relation to reality
which is represented. For Enriques geometry can not be separated from
the experience of space, as this is the first representation of the physical
world.22
For his part, Fréchet has no difficulty in subscribing to the notion that
Poincaré’s conventionalism is based on a criteria of selection of geomet-
rical propositions, not so much in that one would be more valid than the
other, but in that it is more comfortable. He limits himself to checking that
although it is true that there is an arbitrary limit in such criteria, this disap-
pears in the development of the theory when convention presents itself to
us with an absolute meaning. Fréchet adds the following example to those
already presented by Poincaré: It is about comparing the income distribu-
tion of two populations (English and Italians) {xi } and {yi }, 1 ≤ i ≤ n,
comparing their respective “typical value”, a unique number that under
certain conditions represents their order of magnitude. The problem is ini-
tially reduced to define this representative or typical value. X is the typical
value of {xi }, if X is as near as we want of all xi (therefore X ∈ [x1 , xn ]).
But that is not enough; it is necessary to assign some sense to the notion of
proximity between the points of the space. It is where it is indispensable to
establish one or the other convention:
• Lets define X is as near as we want of {xi }, if and only if the following
condition is verified:
X = sup{max{|X − xi |}}, where X ∈ [x1 , xn ], (1 ≤ i ≤ n)
In this case the arithmetic mean is chosen between the minimum and
maximum of the ordered set.
• But the condition could as well be the following:

sup{ |X − xi |}, where X ∈ [x1 , xn ], (1 ≤ i ≤ n)
In this case, as natural as the proceeding one, it must be verified that X is

the median of the xi .
• Finally, in any case, the condition could be defined as a variant of the
same property although in a “less natural” manner:

sup{ (X − xi )2 }, where X ∈ [x1 , xn ], (1 ≤ i ≤ n)
In this case, X it is verified as the arithmetic mean of the xi , (1 ≤ i ≤ n).

If this third convention has been chosen in the study of the problem of the
distribution of income typical in populations, it is not because is the most
natural, but because it is the most comfortable. Fréchet adds:
The most comfortable in algebraic calculations [not in the numeric ones] where mathem-
aticians know that the sum of the squares have simpler properties that the sum of absolute
values. Applying this principle has become so common that frequently it is assigned an
absolute value that does not possess.23
1.6. Legitimising Theoretical Conventions and Agreement with

Experience
In consequence, Fréchet supports the first two characteristics used by Poin-
caré, in his work on non-Euclidean geometry. When is one convention
more comfortable than other? According to Poincaré when it is presented
to us as the simpler from the formal and analytical points of view. However,
once the convention has been established at his formal level, it excludes –
for Poincaré in an explicit manner, for Fréchet in an in-explicit manner,
and in not at all for Enriques24 – any intervention, at least on this level of
reasoning, of any kind of intuition by faculties of our psychological appar-
atus or of conditioning factors of our social and cultural behaviour. Formal
and analytical thought is the final instance of conceptual legitimisation25
of the conventions agreed by mathematicians in their activity. At the same
time, it is here where they are able to reduce what constitutes their intrinsic
limitation: the arbitrary of its choice. The method of the sum of the squares
is the simplest convention from the point of view of analysis and operations
in which it is made to intervene in theory, and no mathematician – Fréchet
adds – would agree with using any other method in which, for example,
the notion of typical value of the {xi } is defined as the products of its
significant digits.
With respect to second aspect that allows us to distinguish when a con-
vention is more comfortable than other – in other words, when it agrees
better with the characteristics of the phenomena revealed by objective
perception-, Fréchet takes care to show in his comments that his ideas coin-
cide with those of Poincaré. The careful choice of the following quotation
demonstrates his interest in highlighting this coincidence:
Conventions yes; arbitrary not. They would be if the experiences that led the founders of
the science to adopt them, were not taken into account.26
But Fréchet does not hide the fact that he can not justify a convention, only
or mainly because of easy or (theoretical) simplification. If he did so, it
would imply that a science is “complete” when it limits itself to postulating
axioms and deriving consequences. For this reason, he reminds Enriques –

for whom the arbitrary of the person who defines, does not differ from the
architect who built a house based on a harmonious project – that exactitude
or even the beauty of propositions in an axiomatic-deductive system, are
not the result of an “arbitrary” building plan (arbitrary in the sense of
being a free creation). In the same way as the architect is constrained to
his aesthetic project by the requirements of the solidity of his building,
the mathematician is obliged by the choice of his conventions to remain in
agreement with nature.
In this way, it is clear that Fréchet is expressing his doubts that math-
ematical reasoning can by itself, without resorting to experience, guarantee
the exactitude (the simple character or inclusive beauty) of mathematical
propositions. In fact, the central aim of his presentation in the Entretiens
de Zurich is “to restore the experimental origin of basic mathematical
notions”. Nevertheless, Fréchet does not offer a (reasonably) satisfact-
ory explanation of how the analytical form of a convention is derived
from experience, a form in which mathematicians compare conventions
by means of the criteria and properties of the specific theory, finally does
recognising it as the most comfortable and natural one (the expressions are
from Poincaré). In the sum of the squares example, Fréchet limits himself
to reiterating the principle of relation between the analytical form and
its corresponding empirical problem: to “compare the pecuniary media
between the “English” and “Italian” populations through the process of
replacing (“approximating”) the two populations by the typical value of
each one of them. Later, he seems to indicate that in the establishing act
of convention (the typical value), our intuitions of magnitude or order of
approximation among the elements of the populations intervene. Fréchet
is not interested in providing any explanation about the cognitive nature of
these intuitions and how their intervention is carried out in the constitution
of the convention. He goes on immediately to compare the different (con-
ventional) definitions of typical value as a limit, in relation to the topology
assigned to the space of the population focused.
1.7. Cognitive Subject and Mathematical Objectivity

In fact, for Fréchet the mental capacities and abilities fulfill an important
role in the subject’s reasoning activity, and allow him to play an important
role vis-à-vis the object in the process of its constitution. Probably this
does not extend to the point that mental ability allows the subject to exhibit
the object directly (for example, to formulate the convention in a finished
manner). However, it does allow him to “prefigure it” in a certain way, from
a class of possible objects. Thus the gifted mathematician has the ability
to discard within the family of propositions that motivates his interest

in a particular problem, the class of propositions that are false, without
needing to employ inductive mathematical processes. This mental capacity
operates unconsciously in the subject through intuitions, evidences, sub-
jective experiences, inventions or faculties such as the researcher’s “sense
of smell”.
In a publication during the last period of his life, dedicated to the study
of the life and works of Emile Borel,27 Fréchet would make a more rad-
ical stance in the position he had adopted almost thirty years before in
his exposé in the Entretiens de Zurich. He underlines Borel’s conception
that mathematics should have a solid basis in concrete reality and in hu-
man nature. With regard to the first idea, he reminds us that he expressed
the point of view before that mathematical notions which are “truly new
and important” have been suggested by problems thrown up by nature. In
”addition to these notions, mathematicians have developed others, through
independent processes of (“artificials”) experience, in order to harmonise,
generalise and simplify the results already obtained. This autonomous de-
velopment of mathematics produces results which are “comfortable but
not absolutely necessary”. With regard to Borel’s second idea, Fréchet
thinks that the mathematician’s personality or mental characteristics (not
the affective neither the cultural o social aspects) are “more or less inde-
pendent of the studied domain”. Nevertheless they imprint a deep mark on
his works, being responsible for the choice of his research problems and
his epistemological focuses. It is thanks to them that:
Some mathematicians concentrate to discover amazing paradoxical situations; to diagnose

“pathological cases”. (That) others, on the contrary, only study different cases in order
to modify the definitions and in this way, to present such cases as particular cases that
could have been predicted. (That) others, who are talented analysts search, for a particular
mathematical quantity, to establish their properties, the more precise and useful formulae.
(That) others, compare different mathematical quantities, establish their common proper-
ties and formulate a theory that allows for the immediate postulation of all their common
properties.28
Fréchet never thought it to be necessary to go further than the declaration,

to the logical explanation of the privilege that he assigns to the cognitive
subject in the production of mathematical objectivity. One possible explan-
ation maybe found examining his conceptions on experience as a condition
of possibility of mathematical reasoning, the autonomy he concedes to
the development of certain pure concepts, although they are auxiliaries
to the fundamental ones (those obtained by experience), and his idea of
construction of mathematics by the process of successive schematising or
inductive synthesis, to which we will dedicate the second part of this study.
2. FRÉCHET AND THE MATHEMATICAL KNOWLEDGE AS INDUCTIVE

SYNTHESIS
Fréchet’s ideas on the origin of mathematical notions in experience, are

tightly related to his critical postures towards the difficulties of using the
axiomatic-deductive method in the research and teaching of mathemat-
ics. This opposition marks practically all his philosophical reflection, both
historical or educational on mathematics. Perhaps the first publication in
which Fréchet expressed himself openly on this subject was in the open-
ing conference of the analysis course in the university of Strasbourg, 17
November 1919.29 Fréchet was part of the group of professors whose offi-
cial responsibility was to higher studies in the province of Alsace, once the
French political control was established, as a consequence of the territorial
distributions after the great war.
2.1. Fréchet Reader of Arbogast: Critic to Formalism in Teaching

His inaugural talk was a carefully prepared piece; up to what was ex-
pected of the strategic mission that was confided to him in a politically
difficult situation. Fréchet chooses the mathematical work and intellectual
biography of an eminent Alsacian – Louis-Francoise-Antoine Arbogast
– in order to revindicate before his audience a set of themes that were
undoubtedly of a central interest in such a context: (a) the originality
of Arbogast’s contribution to mathematics (formal calculus of operat-
ors, discontinuity of real functions, the algebraic study of holomorphic
functions,30 series theory). These helped Fréchet to emphasize that the
boundaries of knowledge in mathematics can effectively pass to the dif-
ferent regions; not only to central France; (b) his academic development
and his public performance (particularly in educational institutions and in
the National Convention), shows to what extent, Arbogast knew how to
combine Alsacian tradition with the French esprit; and (c) his intellectual
formation in the German culture and the regional influence that charac-
terised him, were always far beyond any narrow sectarianism. Alborgast
advocated the establishment of a unified regime throughout the country
for the teaching of science in the French language, which should be car-
ried out in agreement with the requirements of French pedagogy, which
were notoriously superior, in his judgement to those used in the German
educational institutions. We will now comment on this last point.
Fréchet underlines Arbogast’s opinion in the general plan of public
teaching adopted by the National Convention. He believed that the discov-
ery method was also the most adequate way of communicating knowledge.
Any person, independently of his/her capacities is able to understand the
chaining of ideas used to reach the invented object. For this, he/she only
needs to be given, according to his/her intelligence, “the procedure ne-
cessary to develop all intermediate ideas between what is already known,
which is the starting point, and the unknown point we wish to arrive at”.31
It is not about using the historical method at all costs, observes Fréchet.
If in the present state of the theory there is a more direct procedure to
introduce a particular piece of knowledge, compared with the one initially
used, it would be useless to make the student take an indirect route. Arbo-
gast considered this procedure fell within the analysis method. Apparently
Fréchet represented it to himself, at least from the teaching point of view,
in the following way: begin by introducing the problem in question in a
few words; next step is to establish where the main difficulty lies, and to
teach the student how to overcome it through a series of successive ap-
proximations. For Fréchet, this method of presentation is most appropriate
for the purposes of public instruction in the first Republic, in the same way
as they were announced by Arbogast:
What he wanted above all, was to proscribe the method that presents science as a kind of
divine revelation, through a succession of lemmas, theorems, and corollaries, each of which
is perfectly demonstrated, but which succession develops according to a inaccessible and
mysterious law.32
Although comfortable, this dogmatism seems narrow to Fréchet, and

besides, does not correspond to the French method of teaching. He re-
commends helping to remove from the minds of those then training as
candidates for the mathematics’ aggregation in France, the idea that what
was important was comfort in the logic of presentation. The origin of this
dogmatism is found in formalist conceptions of institutional organisation
and the teaching of German mathematics. “The Germans try to adorn sci-
ence purposely with certain mystery and do not mind being obscure as long
as they appeared to be profound”. With respect to his teaching of analysis
at Strasbourg university, Fréchet describes his orientation in his inaugural
lecture:
Our ideal is completely the opposite; we would like to be so clear and simple that when
the lesson is over the student can say to himself: “how is it that I did not think like this
before myself?”. Probably it would go against our immediate prestige, but would be to our
audience’s benefit.33
2.2. Fréchet’s conceptions on axiomatisation and “désaxiomatisation”

in abstract spaces
In a conference given in Berna in 1925,34 Fréchet returns to these consider-
ations about the type of exposition which would be more convenient in the
teaching of mathematics, setting aside, for the time being, the chauvinistic
treatment of the question he had used 5 years back. Without disowning
the importance that the axiomatic-deductive method had then attained in
mathematical activity, thanks to Hilbert’s school in Göttingen, he set out
to explain in his article, the interest that a program of “désaxiomatisation”
carried out in a parallel fashion, would have in teaching and research.
He makes it clear that he is not an adversary of the ever more dominant
tendency of basing science on the smallest possible number of simple
principles. He himself had used this method with the “utmost persever-
ance” in a considerable part of his work, between 1904–1925.35 His main
concern in this research has been to separate and extract from the lineal
set theory (parts of R and Rn ), and from the theory of real functions as
well, those properties that do not depend on the nature of the objects in
question. Without Fréchet using this terminology in any way, we may agree
in that the formal class of these properties or mathematical propositions is
precisely what he proposed to call the abstract spaces theory (spaces in
which certain topology is defined).
Based on this first class, Fréchet built another category of propositions
and theories, which was more complex in formal ways: general analysis,
one of whose chapters is precisely functional analysis. The intervention
of the deductive method consisted, according to Fréchet, in making avail-
able an adequate choice of axioms to establish increasingly general kinds
of propositions and mathematical entities. For instance, the axiom of the
metric and the topological properties associated with this notion, allowed
him to structure the theory of metric spaces. This theory made possible
the study of several kinds of functional spaces, (continuous functions, ana-
lytical functions, curve spaces, etc.) which from then onwards, share the
fact of having that same structure. The axiomatic-formal procedure was
used again by Fréchet to characterise the topology of space not in terms
of metric, but of convergence of numerable sequences or of neighborhood
families. From this, more general theories or classes of topological spaces
were delivered.36
What is it then according to Fréchet the function of the “désaxiomatisa-
tion”? We need first to remember what representation Fréchet constructs of
the functioning of the axiomatic method? This implies a double interven-
tion: (a) to constitute mathematical objects from empirical objects; or, in
Fréchet’s terms to deduct the definitions from notions introduced from ex-
perience, according to logical procedures; and (b) a second operation that
can be understood as the formulation and demonstration of propositions
that, through convenient hypothesis and certain modalities of reasoning
(observation), affirm properties of such objects. In Fréchet own words, this
second intervention would consist of “trying to prove logically the laws

of observation from convenient hypothesis”.37 Then “désaxiomatisation”
consists of carrying out with the sciences that have reached a high degree
of axiomatisation, an inverse procedure from the one carried out by the
understanding when constituting mathematical objects from empirical ob-
jects (non-elementals). He considers that if the main task of the scientific
researcher to contribute to the development and (formal) perfection of sci-
ence, it is not forbidden for him to look back the road travelled and try
to determine the results of individual efforts, with the added purpose of
trying to control the negative effects of tradition and fashion. Although
this perspective was frequently applied in mathematical activity, it did not
constitute as yet an established doctrine. Then, Fréchet dedicates his 1925
conference to specify and justify his ideas on “désaxiomatisation” with a
few elemental examples: the definition of the length of a circumference,
the geometrical definition of the tangent to a curve and the definition of
the differential of a real value function.
2.3. Experience as the Founding Instance of Mathematical Entities

We will now consider the example of the definition of the length of the
circumference. We will try to decipher Fréchet’s conceptions about the
modalities of reasoning that may guide the subject, through acts of repres-
entation of a given reality, which is external to him, to construct the object
to which this definition may be applied. Without specifically referring to
this in any part of the paper, Fréchet establishes a distinction between
mathematics as a theory or class of propositions and as a human activity
of reasoning with different modalities which are adjusted to certain logical
procedures. He thinks that the subject is faced with a world of objects in
perceptible reality, towards which he has formed representations of a cer-
tain kind, mainly about their space-temporal characteristics. Through his
experience with these objects, the subject is confronted with the practical
problem of determining the length of the iron plaque with which to repair
his carriage. He disposes of a serial of concepts and forms of assignation
of concepts to objects, that allows him to determine an “experimental no-
tion” of the length of the plaque. This notion is the following: it is about
a deformable non-elastic longitudinal plaque, that is applied exactly to the
wheel’s contour. This is the first moment of the axiomatisation procedural,
as Fréchet understands it.
In vain we may look (at least in this paper) for some philosophical
interpretation on the relation of the object-subject relationship that allows
us to understand the development of this experimental notion as an act of
reasoning. We will consider this absence more precisely. Let us suppose,
against all evidence, that Fréchet understands the representation of this

circumference-object, which is still not know in terms, for example, of the
Kantian thesis on objective perception. But this elemental knowledge (the
length of the plaque that fixes exactly around the wheel) would only be
possible as the first of a series of subjective a priori constitutive acts.38
Later, we will see that Fréchet would never agree with an interpretation
like this. In reality, what Fréchet thinks is that that notion is “imposed”
on the subject by experience, where experience – non-definable instance;
information prior to all conceptualisation – would have, at the same time,
a kind of intrinsic capacity to project this experimental notion on to the
subject. We would then have, up to now, two characteristics of Fréchet’s
conception on experience.39
The philosophical explanation is not less absent in what refers to the
second moment of the axiomatic method. In other words, the act of the
subject from which the “logic definition” results, “which is found in all
geometry books”: the length of the circumference as the limit of the total
length of a regular convex polygon inscribed in the circumference, when
the length of the side tends to zero. The geometrical (or logical) definition
is different from the physical or experimental type, in that it is a com-
bination (of course logical) of preceding notions. Fréchet does not think,
naturally, this combination in terms of judgements that connect concepts of
objects, and concepts of properties and relationships, even less of the dif-
ferent acts involved in the exhibition of those objects and class of objects,
and in the connection among them. This would have forced him to think of
the criteria that the cognitive subject should mobilise in his consciousness
in order to individualise objects, and to produce the definition of length as a
synthesis of reasoning. And, therefore to take into account the intervention
of pure intuition that secures the unity of objective consciousness in the
synthesis. Fréchet escapes once again the a priori issue, having recourse
to his idea of experience as original instance. The only objective of the
geometrical definition – according to Fréchet – , is to allow for the pre-
diction of the physical evaluation of length. This is because for him, there
is no logical guarantee that the number corresponding to the geometrical
definition agrees with the number that expresses the physical definition.
The concordance is only probable (vraisemblable). It would originate in:
A series of experimental observations unconsciously stored in the understanding. The geo-
meter already knew that when he placed a piece of string on wheels which are slightly
irregular, but of the same diameter, he would find the same length.40
We then find a third idea relating to Fréchet’s conception of experience:

this would be the only irrefutable guarantee41 of the validity of math-
ematical propositions. Because of this, it is necessary for him to do the
opposite thing, to return to experience to exam the correspondence of

the geometrical definition with the experimental one. In other words, it
requires what Fréchet calls “désaxiomatisation”, which aims at the direct
or indirect verification of the mathematical result of a physical hypothesis.
The verification of the concordance between the two definitions is more
necessary than the teaching, as it is essential to make the student under-
stand that all our science only give us an approximated idea of reality;
and that an inductive theory can not by itself, explain the world of sens.42
When the presentation method begins with the announcement of a system
of axioms, the student refuses to accept as simple or intuitive the notions
introduced by way of concepts, or the laws introduced as postulates. The
student must be helped in the reconstruction of the abstraction work carried
out by the author of the theory, in order for him no to deny his trust to
the theory. The teaching of mathematics has to take into account that the
axiomatic utterance and the deductive part of the theory are the result of a
previous work. This previous work constitutes the moment of justification
of all axioms. Jean-Louis Destouches had studied it as inductive synthesis:
the first of the three parts of the construction of all physical theory. In his
communication for the Entretiens de Zurich Fréchet revisits Destouches’
ideas and proposes to add a forth section to his classification, precisely
related to the verification of the agreement between what is abstracted,
with concrete reality. This is the operation which he calls “désaxiomatisa-
tion” and he assigns it an important role in the teaching of science and
mathematics (see note 15).43 We will now examine, in general terms, what
Destouches-Fréchet’s classification consists of.
2.4. The Inductive Synthesis and the Kantian Position on the Synthetic a
priori
Destouches formulates these ideas in the context of his thesis on the form
of physical theories.44 In any (physical) theory, there is a preliminary part
called inductive synthesis, which contains all reasoning that make up the
general ideas at the base of the theory and its presentation as axiomatic
utterances. The other part of the theory is deductive: it is formed by a set
of results from which the axiomatic utterance is deducted as the application
of rules of reasoning. According to Destouches, then, in a physical theory
three parts must be considered: inductive synthesis, axiomatic utterance,
and a deductive part.45 The axiomatic utterance marks the end of the in-
ductive synthesis and the beginning of the deductive part. All theoretical
notion, (for instance geometry) are not purely arbitrary construction of
reasoning. They are the result of a mental process of schematisation and
abstraction from the physical reality. Besides, Destouches emphasises, it
is a schematization that proves to be efficient and useful in its summary

applications and realisations where it was originally understood. As far as
the rules and laws of reasoning that intervene in the constitution of the
theoretical notion (form), they are neither a priori reality nor posses an
absolute formative character a priori. They are separated (dégaées) from
physical reality and are one of the first theoretical constructions by the
same process of schematization and construction that gave rise to concepts
and other theoretical notions. The theoretical form appears at moments
in which the rules of reasoning and definition relate both terms and ut-
terances. From certain notions it is then possible to move to others by
means of definitions. Equally, it is possible to pass from one proposition to
another using the rules of reasoning and the original utterances. As these
utterances (concepts and postulates) are no evident in themselves, it is
necessary for the understanding to intervene in their acceptance through
a process of inductive synthesis.
Among the different modalities of reasoning that constitute the induct-
ive synthesis, Destouches stresses the following: experimentation, intuitive
knowledge, previous theory considered as a summary of the theory that
needs to be created, the combination of partial deductive theories, and
diverse forms of induction and analogy. Fréchet undoubtedly adopts this
classification in his conference of Entretiens de Zurich and, based on some
examples, he shows how some of these forms of thought associate with
different types of mathematical theories. It is not only the development
of fundamental mathematical objects, that as we have already mention,
originates, according to Fréchet, in experience. It is also the more abstract
theories and notions, those that are “imagined by the mathematicians as
useful devices that have not been imposed from outside”.46 But what is
absent both in Destouches as in Fréchet, is a satisfactory philosophical
explanation of the modalities of reasoning that made up the classification
schema. In this necessarily global view of Destouches’ thesis on inductive
synthesis, we will focus on one idea that shows that although inductive
synthesis aims at interpreting knowledge as a human activity of conceptual
schematisation from reality, it reflects a convincing philosophical explana-
tion of mathematical reasoning, as the Kantian thesis of a priori synthesis.
At least in one important point: the no acceptation of the subject’s capacity
(a priori) to produce concepts of pure forms through a synthesis of thought.
Destouches states that in the different types or forms of thought of his
schema, there is always a “subjective element”.
But he understands it as: “a reasoning that some accept as justifying
an axiomatic and, in consequence self-evident, would not be accepted by
others”.47 Nevertheless, in the Kantian thesis of the ‘Introduction’ to the
Critic to Pure Reason, as Panza remind us, from the moment an object
becomes a subjective act, its relation to a pure form is seen as possible.
It is pure intuition that will guarantee the availability of these pure forms
(for example, circles and straight lines) and its compositions with others
which are more complex (triangles and polygons). Equally, there is the
pure intuition that guarantees the unity of subjective consciousness that
connects concepts to pure forms through real judgements, in the sense that
these synthetic a priori judgements express the conditions of a discursive
knowledge a posteriori. These judgements are the dynamic principle of the
pure understanding “analogies of experience” and “postulates of empirical
thought in general”; they are rules “according to which a unity of exper-
ience of perception can emerge”.48 To sum up, if on one hand Fréchet
agrees in understanding mathematics as acts of reasoning that lead from
empirical definitions to mathematical definitions, on the other, he does
not accept that synthetic judgements, through which such definitions are
formulated and discerned, have the character of a priori judgements. This
negation would lead him to maintain ambiguous stands, as some of his
contemporaries pointed out to him on several occasions.
2.5. The Dialectics of Gonseth: Mediation Between Fréchet’s

“Empiricism” and Enriques’ Idealism
In the Entretiens de Zurich, the positions advocated by Fréchet on the
origin of mathematical notions and the inductive synthesis gave rise to
comments and criticisms from several of the participants: Gonseth, En-
riques, Bernays, Lukasiewicz and Lebesgue. We will now look more
closely at what the first two of these said about the subject we have been
considering.49 Enriques agrees with Fréchet that mathematics can not be
reduced to its formal or logic aspect. However, he criticises him for fallen
into excessive empiricism when trying to abandon pure logic. If it is true
that this was a current philosophical position of that time, its explanation
seemed insufficient to him. Essentially Enriques argues for the need to
characterise the mathematical object as an idealised object, not as an object
of direct experience. He accepts that Fréchet is right when he proposes a
didactic strategy of geometry as the science of reality, but not at the cost of
creating for the student grater difficulties in his interpretation of the nature
of the act of reasoning. Certainly, for some ends within this strategy, it is
possible to suggest that the students should represent geometrical objects
as solid objects. But there is need to solve the obstacle of understanding,
for example, the abstract rectangle as the measure of all possible material
rectangles. The measure of all possible cubs is something very near to a
cub, but it is not the cub itself. Nevertheless, Enriques goes further when
he states that “the idea of cub pre-exits in the understanding of each one of
us. (. . . ) the mathematical objects are not material objects, but ideals de-
veloped in human understanding by the intimate laws of the structure of the
spirit”. Fréchet answers that “the intervention of the understanding does
not consist in creating the fundamental concepts of human thought in a
completely developed form, but only in separating the essential characters
of certain class of concrete objects leaving aside the secondary particular-
ities. In this way, certain concrete objects are made to correspond with an
ideal object, a simpler one, and therefore one showing better the imprint of
logical reasoning, but one that seems the most possible one to the concrete
object”.50
At the end of the debate, Gonseth acknowledges the coincidence of
the two points of view, that he has stated in several of his works, with
the ideas of Fréchet; particularly in two aspects: (a) the empirical roots
of the fundamental mathematical notions, and (b) the commitment of all
our conceptual apparatus to experience in its most ample sense (the lat-
ter should include mental experience, according to Bernays’ suggestion,
as well as experience of the physical world). But he objects to Fréchet’s
former statement: “When Mr. Fréchet talks, for example, of the creation of
a simplify image by the elimination of secondary qualities, Mr. Enriques
could respond that none of those eliminations that do not already suppose
the idea of the notion to abstract”. Further on, in the ‘Conclusions’ (see
Note 20), Gonseth reiterates that Enriques’ objection is a serious one, and
that the geometrical idea of the cub is not an experimental measure among
all possible realisations of the cub; that mathematical beings are ideal
objects, created by the understanding with a certain independence from
the immediate and conscious experimentation. And given that, previously,
Bernays had pointed out that the debate could not be confined within tra-
ditional philosophical stands, which are extremely schematic and simple,
he takes on himself the task of reviewing such positions; especially as the
relationships between intuition and experimentation, had been, if that were
the case, suggested in the interventions. From this perspective, Gonseth
aligns himself with Fréchet against the idealist conception expressed by
Enriques, that creation is a product which is completely independent from
understanding, and was simply under the immanent demands of reason.
He proposes to interpret the question through the idea of dialect inspired
by some of the philosophical comments of Lebesgue’s presentation to the
Entretiens.51
Lesbegue had said that mathematical activity develops as a double ten-
sion between the study’s theme (object and aim to be reached) and the
appropriate mode of reasoning. Gonseth proves that this idea has already
been validated by historical experience, and that it is consistent with the

fact that scientific activity is not informed automatically and exclusively
by the formal logic. Then, he suggests an interpretation of Lebesgue’s
position, based on a three level dialectic: (a) the meaning of things which
are been talked about; (b) the purposes of thought when talking about
what is being talked about; and (c) the already accepted ways of talk-
ing about the subject with good sense and efficiency. On the horizon of
dialectic, Gonseth adds, logic is found: the order of the symbolic, at the
limit, eliminates the dialectic’s three moments; or, in other words, in logic,
the intentional dialect’s order disappears. Now, mathematical activity in
its widest sense should incorporate, besides knowledge of a psychological
order, the knowledge of the world of natural and physical reality. Then,
Gonseth proposes a classification of mathematical activities according to
the different essential intentions they are aiming at: (a) Dialectics of sen-
sation: Intentional activities addressed to the real world and controlled
by sensitive intuition (geometry, cinematic, the mathematical theory of
colours); (b) Dialectics of the systematic experience: Intentional activities
like the former ones but using systematic experience to intervene (rational
mechanics, classical or relativist mechanics and other mathematisation of
phenomena); and (c) Dialectics of our elemental behaviours: Intentional
activities and elemental behaviour related to the most primitive aspects of
the physical and mental world (elemental arithmetic and logic).
From this schema, Gonseth believes it possible to establish a comprom-
ise between Fréchet’s realism and the idealism of which Enriques was the
spokesman, at least on one occasion. In sensation dialectics information
is exercise through a priori forms of intuition. These forms are unques-
tionably normative in character. The ideas that they develop are reason
entities in Enriques’ sense. But it is necessary not to forget that contact
with the real is established precisely through the forms of the intuition and
the senses. Therefore, the content of such forms should be thought of as
schematic representation of reality. The same can be said about all math-
ematical activity that points, directly or through intuition of the senses, to
knowledge of the real. This experiment does not exhaust all possibilities of
mathematical activities. There are the dialectics which are directed towards
the infinite and the formal. The mathematical objects that intervene here
are not schematic images of a certain reality obtained immediately, from
the “natural and not specifically mathematical play of intuitive forms and
the “previous” categories that all human adults have at their disposition.
They are abstract entities created by the mathematical imagination, or im-
mediate intuitive representations, or by analogy and extension”. They are
the objects of general analysis and the theory of abstract spaces to which
Fréchet refers in the second part of his presentation. As Lebesgue had in-
sisted that the objects in this new dialectic should be thought of at the same
time as the logic that is convenient to them, Gonseth adds that these last
dialectics are not a formalism. In the same way as “first degree” dialectics
are based on the intuitive knowledge of the objects to which they refer, the
knowledge of “second grade dialectics” also involve their own intuition
and their own evidence, even if they are not explicitly formulated. The
guarantee of their coherence and legitimacy is given by the fact that activity
at this level develops in a symbolic universe which is more or less conven-
tional, influenced by intuitions and evidences. With this articulated schema
of evidences, Gonseth has attempted to contribute to the characterisation
of the intentions that underlie the different manifestations of mathematical
activity. This is an attempt at explanation that tries to overcome the level
of general formulae, devoid of content. It is part of a mathematical philo-
sophy, yet to be built, says Gonseth, that should be rigorous and adequate.
An “utilitarian philosophy” destined above all, to examine and explain how
the mathematical thought operates; how mathematics are built in reality
and in a precise fashion.
NOTES
1 Analysing the impact of these conceptions on young Einstein, Michel Paty has done
an interesting panoramic revision on the essential aspects that characterises “the nov-
elty” of these philosophical stands. Particularly in regard to the experience’s problem and
the foundations of the modern physic-mathematical sciences: Paty, M.: 1993. Einstein
Philosophe. Paris P.U.F. The last two parts of this work Parcours épistémologiques and
Construction théorique et réalite, are very informative on this question. In the present paper
and in others on the philosophical problematic of mathematics and experience, we have
gained from this and other Paty’s studies, from his generous personal talks in Colombia
and France, as well as from his conferences and courses as a visiting professor at Univer-
sidad del Valle (Cali). Particularly important, for clarifying several punctual questions on
Poincaré, was his December 1997 course in our Ph.D academic program on mathematical
education.
2 Freuler, L.: 1995. Les tendances majeures de la philosophie autour de 1900, in M.
Panza and J.-C. Pont (eds.), Les savants et l’épistémologie vers la fin du XIXe siècle. Paris,
Blanchard, pp. 1–15.
3 Le Roy, E. (1901): ‘Sur quelques objections adressées à la nouvelle philosophie’, Revue
de métaphysique et de Morale, IX, pp. 292–327, 407–432; cited in: Freuler (1995), p. 9.
4 Poincaré, H.: 1891, ‘Les géométries non-euclidiennes’, Revue générale des sciences
pures et appliquées 2, 769–774. in Poincaré (ed.), (1902): La science et l’hypothèse. Paris,
Flammarion; Chap. 3. In this and other relating parts to Poincaré’s conceptions on space
and geometry, we have profited from Paty’s readings of this part of Poincaré’s studies. See
Paty (1995, pp. 250–264).
5 For the same reasons he considers they are not analytical judgements. See H. Poincaré,
(1886–1887): ‘Sur les hypothèses fondamentales de la géométrie’, Bulletin de la Société
Mathématique de France XV, 203–216. At the beginning of his studies on non-Euclidean
geometries, he affirms too, that the characterisation of geometrical propositions will not
concern itself with analytical a priori judgements. These are not geometrical propositions,
but belong to analysis. They are axioms of the type “two quantities equal to a third one are
equal between them”, on which all educational science are based: Poincaré (1902, p. 63).
6 Poincaré, H.: 1895. ‘L’espace et la géométrie’, in H. Poincaré (ed.), (1902, Chap. 4),
Revue de métaphysique et de morale 3, 631–646.
7 For Poincaré geometry is the study of the formal properties of a certain group of trans-
formations. Almost ten years before his 1895 work on space and geometry, Poincaré had
set himself to determine the conditions that a group of transformations should be con-
sidered a geometry. In particular an Euclidean geometry in two dimensions. The criteria
for the selection of such conditions, are precisely the simplicity and comfort regarding
the representation of physical phenomena. See Poincaré, H.: 1886–1887. ‘Sur les hypo-
thèses fondamentales de la géométrie’, Bulletin de la Société Mathématique de France
XV, 203–216.
8 Poincaré (1902, p. 75).
9 Cantor, G.: 1883. Über unendliche lineare Punktmannigfaltifkeiten, 5, Math. Annalen
21, 546–586. French translation (1883) in Acta Mathematica 2, 381–408.
10 Poincaré (1902, p. 76).
11 Panza, M.: 1995a. L’intuition et l’évidence. La philosophie kantienne et les géométries
non euclidiennes: relecture d’une discussion. In Panza and Pont (1995; pp. 39–87). See
paragraph 4.4 Poincaré: Géométrie et groupes de transformations, pp. 65–68.
12 Poincaré, H.: 1905. La valeur de la science. Paris, Flammarion. See 1970 edition,
L’intuition et la logique en mathématiques, Chap. 1, pp. 27–40.
13 Poincaré (1970, pp. 33, 39).
14 Otte and Panza: 1997a. ‘Mathematics as an Activity and the Analytic-Synthetic Distin-
tion’, in M. Otte and M. Panza (eds.), Analysis and Synthesis in Mathematics. History and
Philosophy, Kluwer, Dordrecht, pp. 261–271.
15 Otte, M.: 1991. O formal, o social e o subjetivo. Uma Introdução à Filosofia e à
Didáctica da Matemática. São Paulo, Unesp. Translation from the original in German: M.
Otte (1994) Das Formale, das Soziale und Subjektive. EineEinführung in die Philosophie
und Didaktik der Mathematik, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt a. M. See particularly Chap. 15: ‘In-
tuição e lógica em matemática’, pp. 301–318. Of interest on the same subject is: Otte,
M.: 1994a. ‘Intuition and Logic in Mathematics’, in D. F. Robitaille, D.H. Wheeler and
C. Kieran (eds.), Selected Lectures from the 7th International Congress on Mathematical
Education, Les Presses de l’Université de Laval, Sainte-Foy, Québec, pp. 271–284.
16 Otte (1991, pp. 310–311).
17 Fréchet: 1955. Mathematiques et le concret, Paris, P.U.F., p. 18.
18 Fréchet, op. cit., p. 21. Further on page 32, when examining Poincaré’s ideas on con-
ventions, Fréchet agrees with those that object to Poincaré for having placed the complete
induction principle outside experience.
19 Fréchet, op. cit., p. 28.
20 Fréchet’s comments on Poincaré’s conventionalism were made in his 1938 lecture in
the Entretiens de Zurich, but was not published in the memoirs of that meeting and edited
by Gonseth and published three years later: Fréchet, M.: 1941, ‘L’Analyse générale et la
question des fondements’, Les Entretiens de Zurich sur les fondements et la méthode des
sciences mathématiques, Zurich, Leemann, pp. 53–81. Fréchet only published the com-
plete text of this conference fifteen years later, with a title that emphasises the genetic
character of the question: “Les origines des notions mathématiques”, in M. Fréchet: 1955.
Mathématiques et le concret, Paris, P.U.F., pp. 11–51.
21 Fréchet was an assiduous reader of Enriques, and cites him on several occasions in his
lecture of the Entretiens, and with whom he kept an interesting discussion to which we will
refer later. In this conference, Fréchet mentions his publications in the list of cited authors:
Enriques, F.: 1912. ‘La critique des principes et son rôle dans le développement des math-
ématiques’, Scientia 12, 59–79. The critical positions on Poincaré and conventionalism
were originally published in the second part of: Enriques, F.: 1906. Problemi della Scienza,
Zanichelli, Bologna. This part was translated into French in F. Enriques (1919), Les con-
cepts fondamentaux de la science: leur signification réelle et leur acquisition psycologique,
Paris, Flammarion.
22 Enriques (1919, pp. 11–12).
23 Fréchet (1955, pp. 32–34).
24 “Enriques finds the justification of the conventions either in the critically evaluated
data by the psychology of senses and the analysis of sensations, or in the general laws
of association of ideas”, in L. Rougier (trans.), ‘Avertissement’, in Enriques (1919, pp.
1–2).
25 This terminology is not foreign to Fréchet’s discourse when he expresses his ideas. In
this context he includes the following reference to Poincaré to back up his argumentation:
‘(. . . ) All probability problem presents two study periods: The first one is, the so called,
metaphysical: legitimates such or such convention. The second, mathematics, applies to
such conventions the rules of the calculus’, Fréchet (1955, p. 32).
26 Poincaré, H.: 1902. La science et l’hipothèse. Flammarion, Paris. See 1968 edition
(Chap. 6, p. 128). It is interesting to complete here Poincaré’s quotation: “Conventions,
yes; arbitrary, no”; They would be so if it was not taken into account those experiences that
led the founders of the science to adapt them, even if they were imperfect, it is enough to
adapt them. It would be good from time to time, to focus our attention on the experimental
origin of such conventions.
27 Fréchet, M.: 1965. La vie et l’œuvre d’Émile Borel. L’Enseignement mathématique,
Genève; second part ‘Les tendances générales de l’oeuvre scientifique d’Emile Borel’ (see
particularly pp. 39–42).
28 Fréchet (1965, p. 40).
29 Fréchet, M.: 1920. ‘Les mathématiques à l’université de Strasbourg’, La Revue du Mois
21, 337–362. Reproduced almost totally in: Fréchet (1955, pp. 368–388), under the title
‘Biographie du mathématicien Alsacien Arbogast’.
30 A function f is holomorphic in a point z over an open domain D of C, if and only if, f
0
is defined on a neighborhood of z0 and f is derivable in z0 . The function f is then infinitly
derivable in z0 . If z is holomorphic in all points of D, f is analytic on D. The holomorphic
concept was introduced by Cauchy in 1851, under the name “synectique”. Briot and
Bouquet substituted this word by the word “holomorphic” in their 1859 study on double
periodical functions. See J. Dieudonné (ed.): 1978. Abrége d’histoire des mathématiques.
1700–1900 (2 volumes). Paris, Hermann, Vol. 1, p. 147 and ss.
31 Quoted in Fréchet (1955), op. cit., p. 383.
32 Fréchet (1955), op. cit., p. 383.
33 Fréchet (1955), op. cit., p. 383. Immediately Fréchet backs himself up in the following
opinion – that coming from Émile Picard, then life time secretary of the Paris Academy
of Sciences – shows to what extent it was shared by a group of personalities in the French
mathematical community of the time, as opposed to their German colleagues: “Usually,
among the most illustrious ones, the guiding ideas remain obscure, maybe intentionally
(. . . ) the reader walks with difficulty without knowing where to go”.
34 Fréchet, M. (1925): ‘Sur une désaxiomatisation de la science’, conference published for
the first time in: Fréchet (1955), pp. 1–10.
35 In this year (1925), Fréchet had already finished writing his study on abstract spaces
[Fréchet 1928], which would be circulated among a selected group of his colleagues at
international level. In the book and in Fréchet’s correspondence of the Paris Academy
of Sciences, numerous traces can be found of the objectives reorganisation process, re-
organisation of propositions, legitimation of criteria, to which the manuscript had to be
submitted to finally adopt the formal organisation of the published text. See: Arboleda
(1979, 1981, 1984) (compacidity); Gispert (1980) (dimension); Taylor (1982, 1985, 1987).
This too is the year in which Fréchet published an article on which he will elaborate the
interesting ‘Introduction’ to Abstracts Spaces: Fréchet, M.: 1925. ‘L’Analyse générale et
les Ensembles abstraits’, Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale 32, 1–30.
36 Fréchet (1955), op. cit., p. 2.
37 Fréchet (1955), op. cit., p. 3. Fréchet does not explicitly use philosophical categories
(Kantians or of other types) in his argumentation. But as he is approaching as a matter of
fact a philosophical problematic on the act of knowledge, we consider relevant here the use
of these type of categories. This has made possible: (a) a more systematic reading of articles
published at different times and of different purposes; (b) to decipher the meaning of its
argumentation; and (c) finally, to identify and characterise ambiguities in his conceptions.
Obviously, if our interpretation of such categories and their application to the study of
Fréchet’s ideas are correct.
38 As in other parts of this study, we use here Panza’s study dedicated in several of his
publications on Kant’s philosophical thesis on mathematics. Most important for us has
been his reading of the Critic to the Pure Reason in Panza (1997a). We have also benefitted
from his courses on history and philosophy of mathematics in May 1998 and April 1999,
in the PhD program on Mathematical Education at Universidad del Valle. We have also
clarified doubts consulting: Friedman, M.: 1992. Kant and the Exact Sciences, Harvard
University Press, Cambridge, MA.
39 In an interesting study of the philosophy of Ferdinand Gonseth, Panza criticises his
frequent use of the experience notion as a first step of the relationship of man with the
world, and judgment of reason, without going further into the formulation of philosophical
hypothesis on the forms of the relationships and the sanctions implied in these statements.
“Therefore, as “manifest” experience, all “experience” needs a previous step to formulate
the problem (the gnoseological problem per excellency)”. Panza, M.: 1992a. ‘Gonseth et
les prolégomènes d’une logique de la connaissance’, in M. Panza and J.-C. Pont (eds.),
Espace et horizons de réalité. Masson, Paris, pp. 23–45.
40 Fréchet (1955; p. 4).
41 It is important to mention here Panza’s opinion, at the end of his study (Panza, 1997a, p.
323): “Therefore, the philosophy of mathematics’ objective to me, is to provide powerful
categories that allow the characterisation and understanding of mathematics as a typical
human activity, and not founded or legitimised on an irrefutable guarantee –although to un-
derstand a mathematical theory is also to return to its origins and to clarify (and eventually
to discuss) its reasons”.
42 Fréchet (1955; p. 16).
43 The apart of the Communication of the Entretiens in which Fréchet mentions
Destouches’ ideas, is titled ‘Les quatre parties de chaque science mathématique’ [Fréchet
1941, pp. 55–60]. Let’s remember that this is a summary version. It does not include several
examples in which Fréchet analyses the inductive synthesis study that has allowed to built
in a deductive way, several correlated mathematical notions: the infinite, the numerable
successions, and the principle of complete induction.
44 Destouches, J.-L.: 1938, Essai sur la forme générale des théories physiques. Thèse
principale pour le Doctorat-ès-Lettres. Université de Paris (see Chap. IV). On this ques-
tion, we have used a sample of the following manuscript that is found in Biblioteca L. A.
Arango, Bogotá: Destouches, J.-L, (1955): Cours de Logique et Philosophie générale, 4
ed., Centre de Documentation Universitaire, Paris (see Chap. 3). Lets remember here that
Destouches had an intense intellectual relationship with Fréchet. The second facsimile of
the series ‘Exposés d’Analyse générale’ directed by Fréchet in Hermann, was highlighted
by Destouches when he pointed out the importance, that around 1930, was initially re-
cognised of the abstract spaces theory (particularly metric spaces) in quantic physics and
wave mechanics was mentioned. There, Destouches expresses the following opinion: “It is
possible to say that the abstract spaces theory constitutes the geometrical bases that quanta
physicians should know, in the same way in which the Riemannian spaces constitute the
geometrical base of the relativity theory”: Destouches, J.-L.: 1935. Le rôle des espaces
abstraits en physique nouvelle, Paris, Hermann.
45 Destouches (1955, pp. 25–26). Fréchet prefers to talk of four parts in each mathematical
theory: inductive synthesis, separation from them of the axiomatic enunciations, deductive
theory and verification of its consequences. This last part precisely results from the “désax-
iomatización” function. Fréchet defines it as follows: ‘verification of the consequences of
the theory when the abstract notions that figure in it are substituted by the concrete notions
to which they try to represent schematically’, Fréchet (1955, p. 22).
46 Fréchet (1955, p. 37). These notions are not schemas of reality. They are mathem-
aticians’ abstract creations through reasoning formed by analogy, extension, scaling of
deductive processes from preliminary theories etc.
47 Destouches (1955). Maybe this relativisation of the capacity of the subjective syn-
thesis act to produce objectivity explains Fréchet’s determination to add a fourth item to
Destouches’ classification: The verification – through the “désaxiomatisation” – of the
mathematical propositions obtained in the inductive-axiomatisation-deduction chain. It is
something more than objectivity’s natural pulsing, that he demands for the research spirit,
to go back to the intentional act that originated reasoning, in order to verify that its purpose
was not abandoned half way.
48 Panza (1997a, p. 290).
49 The outline of this debate was organised by Gonseth as co-ordinator of the Entretiens
and as the debates’ chairman. The complete content was published both in Fréchet (1941)
as in Fréchet (1955, pp. 45–51). Gonseth’s general comments, in which he analysis these
and other discussions that took place in the Entretiens, are only to be found in the pro-
ceedings of the meeting: Gonseth (1941); ‘Conclusions. Sur le role unificateur de l’idée de
dialectique’, pp. 188–209.
50 Frechet (1955, pp. 47–48). Fréchet had supported a similar idea in his communication,
which he identifies with Bacon’s method: “(this) consists of separating, gradually, from the
regularities, from the approximated permanencies that we see around us in a multitude of
similar phenomena, permanencies more general each time, and gives schematic represent-
ations, each time more simple of the sensitive world, but making sure, at each step, that the
approximations obtained remain within their admissible limits (limits conditioned by the
successive states of our instruments and measurement methods)” (op. cit., p. 17).
51 Lesbegue, H.: “Les controverses sur la théorie des ensembles et la question des
fondaments”, in Gonseth (1941, pp. 109–124).
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LUIS CARLOS ARBOLEDA and LUIS CORNELIO RECALDE

FRÉCHET AND THE LOGIC OF THE CONSTITUTION OF

1. FRÉCHET AND POINCARÉ ’ S CONVENTIONALISM

In several of his works Fréchet made important commentaries on Poin-

1.1. The Practical Value of Science Down the Centuries

Synthese 134: 245–272, 2003.

Around the year 1900, in contrast to ideas of a static reason, only

1.2. The Conventional Character of Geometry in Poincaré

organisation of the sensations, compared with representative space. What

It is convenient to note the historical character of this affirmation. Poincaré

1.3. Intuition and Logic in Poincaré

the certainty of arithmetic depends totally on our (mental) ability to prove

1.4. Fréchet’s Opposition to Poincaré’s Ideas on Intuition

crete objects. Later, “from the moment we introduced the consideration

1.5. “Natural” Conventions and “Comfortable” Conventions in Fréchet

X = sup{max{|X − xi |}}, where X ∈ [x1 , xn ], (1 ≤ i ≤ n)

In this case, as natural as the proceeding one, it must be verified that X is

In this case, X it is verified as the arithmetic mean of the xi , (1 ≤ i ≤ n).

1.6. Legitimising Theoretical Conventions and Agreement with

axioms and deriving consequences. For this reason, he reminds Enriques –

1.7. Cognitive Subject and Mathematical Objectivity

to discard within the family of propositions that motivates his interest

Some mathematicians concentrate to discover amazing paradoxical situations; to diagnose

Fréchet never thought it to be necessary to go further than the declaration,

2. FRÉCHET AND THE MATHEMATICAL KNOWLEDGE AS INDUCTIVE

Fréchet’s ideas on the origin of mathematical notions in experience, are

2.1. Fréchet Reader of Arbogast: Critic to Formalism in Teaching

Although comfortable, this dogmatism seems narrow to Fréchet, and

2.2. Fréchet’s conceptions on axiomatisation and “désaxiomatisation”

second intervention would consist of “trying to prove logically the laws

2.3. Experience as the Founding Instance of Mathematical Entities

against all evidence, that Fréchet understands the representation of this

We then find a third idea relating to Fréchet’s conception of experience:

opposite thing, to return to experience to exam the correspondence of

is a schematization that proves to be efficient and useful in its summary

2.5. The Dialectics of Gonseth: Mediation Between Fréchet’s

been validated by historical experience, and that it is consistent with the

Alsina, C. et al.: 1998. 8th International Congress on Mathematical Education. Selected

Universidad del Valle

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