Ferdinand Gonseth

Ferdinand Gonseth (1890–1975) was a Swiss mathematician and philosopher.[1]

He was born on 22 September 1890 at Sonvilier, the son of Ferdinand Gonseth, a clockmaker, and his wife Marie Bourquin. He studied at La Chaux-de-Fonds, and read physics and mathematics at ETH Zurich, from 1910 to 1914.[2]

In 1929 Gonseth succeeded Jérôme Franel as Professor of Higher Mathematics at ETH.[3] In 1947 he founded Dialectica, with Paul Bernays and Gaston Bachelard. In the same year he took the newly-created chair of philosophy of science at ETH.[4]

Gonseth died on 17 December 1975 at Lausanne.[1] He was noted for his "open philosophy", according to which science and mathematics lacked absolute foundations.[5] See Idoneism [fr].

Notes

  1. ^ a b "Gonseth, Ferdinand CTHS". Retrieved 10 May 2017.
  2. ^ "Gonseth, Ferdinand, Dictionnaire historique de la Suisse". Retrieved 10 May 2017.
  3. ^ Günther Frei; Urs Stammbach (7 March 2013). Die Mathematiker an den Zürcher Hochschulen (in German). Springer-Verlag. p. 54. ISBN 978-3-0348-8542-3.
  4. ^ Charles P. Enz (6 May 2010). No Time to be Brief: A Scientific Biography of Wolfgang Pauli. OUP Oxford. p. 414. ISBN 978-0-19-958815-2.
  5. ^ Solomon Feferman (9 January 2014). "Correspondence with Paul Bernays". Kurt Gödel: Collected Works: Volume IV: Selected Correspondence, A-G. Clarendon Press. p. 43. ISBN 978-0-19-100376-9.
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