more on this theme | more from this thinker | more from this text
Full Idea
Zermelo proposed his listed of assumptions (including the controversial Axiom of Choice) in 1908, in order to secure his controversial proof of Cantor's claim that ' we can always bring any well-defined set into the form of a well-ordered set'.
Gist of Idea
Zermelo published his axioms in 1908, to secure a controversial proof
Source
report of Ernst Zermelo (Investigations in the Foundations of Set Theory I [1908]) by Penelope Maddy - Believing the Axioms I §1
Book Ref
-: 'Journal of Symbolic Logic' [-], p.483
A Reaction
This is interesting because it sometimes looks as if axiom systems are just a way of tidying things up. Presumably it is essential to get people to accept the axioms in their own right, the 'old-fashioned' approach that they be self-evident.