Ferdinand Gonseth (1890–1975) was a Swiss mathematician and philosopher. He was born on 22 September 1890 at

Sonvilier Sonvilier is a municipality in the Jura bernois administrative district in the canton of Bern in Switzerland. It is located in the French-speaking Bernese Jura (''Jura Bernois''). History Sonvilier is first mentioned in 1298 as ''Sunuilier'' ...

, the son of Ferdinand Gonseth, a clockmaker, and his wife Marie Bourquin. He studied at La Chaux-de-Fonds, and read physics and mathematics at

ETH Zurich (colloquially) , former_name = eidgenössische polytechnische Schule , image = ETHZ.JPG , image_size = , established = , type = Public , budget = CHF 1.896 billion (2021) , rector = Günther Dissertori , president = Joël Mesot , ac ...

, from 1910 to 1914. In 1929 Gonseth succeeded

Jérôme Franel Jérôme Franel (1859–1939) was a Swiss mathematician who specialised in analytic number theory. He is mainly known through a 1924 paper, in which he establishes the equivalence of the Riemann hypothesis to a statement on the size of the discre ...

as Professor of Higher Mathematics at ETH. In 1947 he founded '' Dialectica'', with

Paul Bernays Paul Isaac Bernays (17 October 1888 – 18 September 1977) was a Swiss mathematician who made significant contributions to mathematical logic, axiomatic set theory, and the philosophy of mathematics. He was an assistant and close collaborator of ...

and Gaston Bachelard. In the same year he took the newly created chair of philosophy of science at ETH. Gonseth died on 17 December 1975 at Lausanne. He was noted for his "open philosophy", according to which science and mathematics lacked absolute foundations. See .

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