Essays on the Foundations of Mathematics by Moritz Pasch

Moritz Pasch (1843-1930) is justly celebrated as a key figure in the history of axiomatic geometry. Less well known are his contributions to other areas of foundational research. This volume features English translations of 14 papers Pasch published in the decade 1917-1926. In them, Pasch argues that geometry and, more surprisingly, number theory are branches of empirical science; he provides axioms for the combinatorial reasoning essential to Hilbert's program of consistency proofs; he explores 'implicit definition' (a generalization of definition by abstraction) and indicates how this techni