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It is not the case that Brouwer and Dummett's anti-realism requires that mathematical existence claims be backed by constructive witness, not merely classical logical consequence.
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Reasons For
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Reason for
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1.
Requiring constructive witnesses makes large swaths of established mathematics (Cantor, analysis, set theory) illegitimate without philosophical justification.
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2.
Constructivism conflates epistemology (how we know) with metaphysics (what exists), but logical validity shouldn't depend on knowability.
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3.
Even Brouwer acknowledged that constructivism cannot be formally proven within any single system, undercutting its foundational authority.
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Reasons Against
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Reason against
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1.
Classical logic permits existence proofs by contradiction without specifying *how* to find the object, rendering claims epistemically hollow.
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2.
Constructive witnesses provide computational meaning; non-constructive proofs leave mathematical claims truth-value-indefinite in practice.
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3.
Intuitionistic mathematics avoids the ontological extravagance of assuming infinitely many abstract objects independent of human knowledge.
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