 The syntactic study of such issues, especially of consistency, that became a core part of Hilbertian “proof theory” is not present in Dedekind’s work. As already noted, the proof-theoretic side of logic is not pursued much by him. Nor is the “finitism” characteristic of Hilbert &amp; Bernays’ later work present in Dedekind (an aspect developed in response to the set-theoretic antinomies and to intuitionist challenges), especially if it is understood in a metaphysical sense. Such finitism might have been acceptable to Dedekind as a methodological stance, but in other respects his position is strongly infinitary. In fact, the finite is explained in terms of the infinite in his work: the notion of finitude by that of infinity, the natural numbers in terms of infinite sets, etc. (cf. Hilbert 1922).