4 April 2005, Logic Tea, D.C. McCarty, The Logic Program, Indiana University

Paul du Bois-Reymond was a noted mathematician and philosopher of the second half of the 19th Century, publishing on differential equations, analysis and the foundations of mathematics. His magnum opus, "General Function Theory", appeared in 1882 and contained what its author claimed to be a demonstration that mathematics is absolutely incomplete, that is, that there are mathematically meaningful and significant propositions A such that neither A nor not-A will ever be demonstrated by mathematicians. His arguments for this claim are not based on the idea of a formal system but on a detailed analysis of mathematical cognition. We will describe that analysis and assess for their cogency du Bois-Reymond's incompleteness arguments.

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