>Bill Tait wrote:
>
>>Questions concerning Hilbert's *Foundations of Geometry*.
>>
>>Hilbert's epigraph in *Found Geom* is ``So f\"angt denn alle menschliche
>>Erkenntnis mit Anschauungen an, geht von da zu Begriiffen und endigt mit
>>Ideen.'' It is supposed to be a quote from the *Critique of Pure Reason*,
[...]
>>his version? 3) What did he mean by *his* words? `Intuition' and
>>`concepts', o.k. But what did he mean by `ending with ideas'?
>
>I recall C. Reid says something in her _Hilbert_, but I have to locate my
>copy and come back !
Well... not so informative:
For the published work [=_GderG_], as a graceful tribute to Kant, whose
<i>a priori</a> view of the nature of the geometrical axioms had been
discredited by the new view of the axiomatic method, Hilbert chose as his
epigraph a quotation from his fellow townsman:
"All human knowledge begins with intuitions, then passes to concepts,
and ends with ideas."
(Constance Reid, Hilbert.
New York: Copernicus, An Imprint of Springer-Verlag, 1996, p. 62)
Antreas