Brouwer and Nietzsche : Views about Life, Views about Logic

Friedrich Nietzsche and Luitzen Egbertus Jan Brouwer had strong personalities and freely expressed unconventional opinions. In particular, they dared to challenge the traditional view that considered Aristotelian logic as being absolute and intrinsic to man. Although they formed this opinion in different ways and in different contexts (Nietzsche was born in Saxony and lived in the second half of the nineteenth century, beginning his career as a classical philologist before turning to philosophy; Brouwer was a Dutch mathematician who lived from 1881 to 1966), they both based it on a view of life that considered it as a struggle for power in which logic was a weapon. Therefore, it is interesting to carry out an in-depth analysis on the origins, the core of their opinions concerning logic and the consequences. As a matter of fact, a detailed analysis and a comparison of their contributions to the philosophy of logic have not yet been carried out. In this paper, I intend to present the results of my research on this subject performed by taking into account the studies conducted by E. Steinhart, O. Schutte and S.D. Hales.