Finitism

In the philosophy of mathematics finitism is a form of constructivism, according to which can only be spoken sense of a mathematical object when number of steps are derived from natural numbers in a finite (or, in an attenuated variant, countably infinite ) can.

Even more stringent than finitism is the Ultrafinitismus (or Ultraintuitionismus ), as he is represented by Alexander Esenin - Volpin about. This demands a constructability not only in finitely many steps, but in a physically possible number of steps.

Discrete mathematics deals with finite or at most countable mathematical structures. This leads to a certain overlap between finitism and discrete mathematics, but the latter must be no finitistic motifs based.

• Philosophy of Mathematics