Elementary arithmetic (also known as “elementary function arithmetic”) is a fragment of first-order arithmetic so weak that it cannot prove the totality of an iterated exponential function. Surprisingly, however, the theory turns out to be remarkably robust. I will discuss formal results that show that many theorems of number theory and combinatorics are derivable in elementary arithmetic, and try to place these results in a broader philosophical context. 1

. After a brief flirtation with logicism in 1917--1920, David Hilbert proposed his own program in the foundations of mathematics in 1920 and developed it, in concert with collaborators such as Paul Bernays and Wilhelm Ackermann, throughout the 1920s. The two technical pillars of the project were the development of axiomatic systems for ever stronger and more comprehensive areas of mathematics and finitistic proofs of consistency of these systems. Early advances in these areas were made by Hilbert (and Bernays) in a series of lecture courses at the University of Gttingen between 1917 and 1923, and notably in Ackermann 's dissertation of 1924. The main innovation was the invention of the e-calculus, on which Hilbert's axiom systems were based, and the development of the e-substitution method as a basis for consistency proofs. The paper traces the development of the "simultaneous development of logic and mathematics" through the e-notation and provides an analysis of Ackermann's consisten...

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