ABSTRACT
This paper provides answers to some remarks that Mirja Hartimo and Robert Tragesser have made on a number of themes dealt with in my book Logic and Philosophy of Mathematics in the Early Husserl. In the first part (replies to Mirja Hartimo) I focus on the much debated problem of the influences behind Husserl’s turn away from his earlier psychologistic positions, and consider in particular the role of Frege and Bolzano in determining Husserl’s objectivist turn. In the second part (replies to Robert Tragesser) I discuss Husserl’s concept of a universal arithmetic and answer some questions raised by Tragesser on my critical explanation of Husserl’s idea that a field of objects can be said to exist, if it is possible to set up an axiomatic existential framework for it. I finally spell out a parallel between Husserl’s existential axiomatics and Kit Fine’s method of procedural postulationism, trying to bring some evidence for my claims.
