Abstract: Robert Tragesser comments on Stefania Centrone's Logic and Philosophy of Mathematics in the Early Husserl.

Keywords: Stefania Centrone; Edmund Husserl; phenomenology of mathematics

First I should say I don't think a “commentary” is the same thing as a “review.” What I have done—given the limited time—is to select some views or ideas of Husserl's that Stefania Centrone has unearthed or reconstructed in her study, and to comment on them. They are mainly views about formal logic and about the philosophy or foundations of mathematics. I am going to comment on them from the perspective of my ongoing rethinking of Husserlian phenomenology.

My principal interest has been the phenomenological philosophy of mathematical thought. Over all these years, Husserl's own writings have not been as helpful as I had hoped they would be. In no small part this has to do with the sketchiness of his thinking in print about formal logic and his not knowing how to draw upon or (until very late) even show much interest in the inner history of mathematics, which I now think is necessary for an adequate phenomenological investigation of the nature or natures of mathematical thought.