Abstract
THE title of this essay suggests a number of distinct problems. We may ask what the postulates of geometry are, or we may seek the source of our knowledge of them; in the latter inquiry, again, we may set out to discover how the fundamental geometrical notions grew up, or it may be our object to ascertain how we can have certainty concerning them. Mr. Russell's essay deals with the last of these questions. It is, on the one hand, a criticism of existing theories of geometry, and, on the other hand, it is constructive, and aims at formulating a new philosophical theory of the foundations of the science.
An Essay on the Foundations of Geometry.
By Bertrand A. W. Russell Demy 8vo. Pp. xvi + 201. (Cambridge: at the University Press, 1897.)
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L., A. An Essay on the Foundations of Geometry. Nature 56, 417–418 (1897). https://doi.org/10.1038/056417a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/056417a0