TO FOUND OR NOT TO FOUND? THAT IS THE QUESTION!

Aim of this paper is to confute two views, the first about Schröder's presumptive foundationalism, according to he founded mathematics on the calculus of relatives; the second one maintaining that Schröder only in his last years (from 1890 onwards) focused on an universal and symbolic language (by him called pasigraphy). We will argue that, on the one hand Schröder considered the problem of founding mathematics already solved by Dedekind, limiting himself in a mere translation of the Chain Theory in the language of the relatives. On the other hand, we will show that Schröder's pasigraphy was connaturate to himself and that it roots in his very childhood and in his love for foreign languages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]