Philosophy of Mathematics and Mathematical Practice in the Seventeenth Century

Philosophy of Mathematics and Mathematical Practice in the Seventeenth Century
Author: Paolo Mancosu
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 290
Release: 1999
Genre: Matematik
ISBN: 0195132440

1. Philosophy of Mathematics and Mathematical Practice in the Early Seventeenth Century p. 8 1.1 The Quaestio de Certitudine Mathematicarum p. 10 1.2 The Quaestio in the Seventeenth Century p. 15 1.3 The Quaestio and Mathematical Practice p. 24 2. Cavalieri's Geometry of Indivisibles and Guldin's Centers of Gravity p. 34 2.1 Magnitudes, Ratios, and the Method of Exhaustion p. 35 2.2 Cavalieri's Two Methods of Indivisibles p. 38 2.3 Guldin's Objections to Cavalieri's Geometry of Indivisibles p. 50 2.4 Guldin's Centrobaryca and Cavalieri's Objections p. 56 3. Descartes' Geometrie p. 65 3.1 Descartes' Geometrie p. 65 3.2 The Algebraization of Mathematics p. 84 4. The Problem of Continuity p. 92 4.1 Motion and Genetic Definitions p. 94 4.2 The "Causal" Theories in Arnauld and Bolzano p. 100 4.3 Proofs by Contradiction from Kant to the Present p. 105 5. Paradoxes of the Infinite p. 118 5.1 Indivisibles and Infinitely Small Quantities p. 119 5.2 The Infinitely Large p. 129 6. Leibniz's Differential Calculus and Its Opponents p. 150 6.1 Leibniz's Nova Methodus and L'Hopital's Analyse des Infiniment Petits p. 151 6.2 Early Debates with Cluver and Nieuwentijt p. 156 6.3 The Foundational Debate in the Paris Academy of Sciences p. 165 Appendix Giuseppe Biancani's De Mathematicarum Natura p. 178 Notes p. 213 References p. 249 Index p. 267.

The Philosophy of Mathematical Practice

The Philosophy of Mathematical Practice
Author: Paolo Mancosu
Publisher: Oxford University Press on Demand
Total Pages: 460
Release: 2008-06-19
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0199296456

There is an urgent need in philosophy of mathematics for new approaches which pay closer attention to mathematical practice. This book will blaze the trail: it offers philosophical analyses of important characteristics of contemporary mathematics and of many aspects of mathematical activity which escape purely formal logical treatment.

The Language of Nature

The Language of Nature
Author: Geoffrey Gorham
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
Total Pages: 361
Release: 2016-06-15
Genre: Science
ISBN: 1452951853

Galileo’s dictum that the book of nature “is written in the language of mathematics” is emblematic of the accepted view that the scientific revolution hinged on the conceptual and methodological integration of mathematics and natural philosophy. Although the mathematization of nature is a distinctive and crucial feature of the emergence of modern science in the seventeenth century, this volume shows that it was a far more complex, contested, and context-dependent phenomenon than the received historiography has indicated, and that philosophical controversies about the implications of mathematization cannot be understood in isolation from broader social developments related to the status and practice of mathematics in various commercial, political, and academic institutions. Contributors: Roger Ariew, U of South Florida; Richard T. W. Arthur, McMaster U; Lesley B. Cormack, U of Alberta; Daniel Garber, Princeton U; Ursula Goldenbaum, Emory U; Dana Jalobeanu, U of Bucharest; Douglas Jesseph, U of South Florida; Carla Rita Palmerino, Radboud U, Nijmegen and Open U of the Netherlands; Eileen Reeves, Princeton U; Christopher Smeenk, Western U; Justin E. H. Smith, U of Paris 7; Kurt Smith, Bloomsburg U of Pennsylvania.

Nominalism and Constructivism in Seventeenth-Century Mathematical Philosophy

Nominalism and Constructivism in Seventeenth-Century Mathematical Philosophy
Author: David Sepkoski
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 186
Release: 2013-05-24
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 1136768688

What was the basis for the adoption of mathematics as the primary mode of discourse for describing natural events by a large segment of the philosophical community in the seventeenth century? In answering this question, this book demonstrates that a significant group of philosophers shared the belief that there is no necessary correspondence between external reality and objects of human understanding, which they held to include the objects of mathematical and linguistic discourse. The result is a scholarly reliable, but accessible, account of the role of mathematics in the works of (amongst others) Galileo, Kepler, Descartes, Newton, Leibniz, and Berkeley. This impressive volume will benefit scholars interested in the history of philosophy, mathematical philosophy and the history of mathematics.

Mathematics in Kant's Critical Philosophy

Mathematics in Kant's Critical Philosophy
Author: Lisa Shabel
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 249
Release: 2017-09-25
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 113537063X

First published in 2003. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Beyond the Learned Academy

Beyond the Learned Academy
Author: Philip Beeley
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 572
Release: 2023-12-06
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 0192609491

The tremendous growth of the mathematical sciences in the early modern world was reflected contemporaneously in an increasingly sophisticated level of practical mathematics in fields such as merchants' accounts, instrument making, teaching, navigation, and gauging. In many ways, mathematics shaped the knowledge culture of the age, infiltrating workshops, dockyards, and warehouses, before extending through the factories of the Industrial Revolution to the trading companies and banks of the nineteenth century. While theoretical developments in the history of mathematics have been made the topic of numerous scholarly investigations, in many cases based around the work of key figures such as Descartes, Huygens, Leibniz, or Newton, practical mathematics, especially from the seventeenth century onwards, has been largely neglected. The present volume, comprising fifteen essays by leading authorities in the history of mathematics, seeks to fill this gap by exemplifying the richness, diversity, and breadth of mathematical practice from the seventeenth century through to the middle of the nineteenth century.

Handbook of the History and Philosophy of Mathematical Practice

Handbook of the History and Philosophy of Mathematical Practice
Author: Bharath Sriraman
Publisher:
Total Pages: 985
Release: 2020
Genre: History
ISBN: 9783030190712

The philosophy of mathematics can be traced back in time to the dawn of mathematics itself. The axiomatization of Euclid in "The Elements" did not hinder innovations in mathematical practice to develop outside the realm of the deductive method. In fact the history of mathematics shows a rich tapestry of practice that include visual, algorithmic, experimental, probabilistic and computational approaches. However the philosophy of mathematics as argued by Imre Lakatos suggests that the innovations and impasses in mathematical practice have remained more or less unacknowledged in philosophy. For instance mathematical argumentation was primarily the domain of theologians and medieval and postmedieval scholastics for over 1700 years after Aristotle. Similarly the study of logic became the purview of mathematical philosophy criticized by Reuben Hersh as "Quinean ping-pong". In two prior Springer books 18 Unconventional Essays on the Nature of Mathematics (Hersh,2006) and Humanizing Mathematics and its Philosophy (Sriraman, 2017), it is sufficiently clear that the philosophy of mathematics is no longer centered around it origins in theology and logic, but influences and is influenced by other domains. Today the philosophy of mathematics can be informed by computer scientists, historians, logicians, linguists, educators, physicists, psychologists, neuroscientists, statisticians and last but not least mathematicians. At the dawn of the 21st century we still have a cadre of scholars influenced first-hand by the likes of Quine and Brouwer, as well as those who were influenced by Imre Lakatos' seminal work Proofs and Refutations (in the 1970s) that espouse the views of practicing mathematicians. Pluralism is the avant-garde term in vogue today suggesting a "post- modern" view of mathematics that would have been frowned upon a century ago. The purpose of this unique Handbook is to unfold the transformation of the philosophy of mathematics from its origins in the history of mathem atical practice. In order to do so, chapters will describe different mathematical practices in different time periods of history and contrast it with the development of philosophy. The contributions will include scholars from other disciplines who have contributed to the richness of perspectives that abound the study of philosophy today. The Handbook aims to synthesize what is known, and what has unfolded but also offer directions in which the study of philosophy of mathematics as evident in increasingly diverse mathematical practices is headed. Different sections of the Handbook will offer insights into the origins, debates, methodologies and newer perspectives that characterize the discipline today. This Handbook is curated by an editorial advisory board consisting of leading scholars from the disciplines of mathematics, history and philosophy. Editorial Advisory Board Andrew Aberdein Jody Azzouni William Byers Carlo Cellucci Chandler Davis Paul Ernest Michele Friend Reuben Hersh Yuri Manin Athanase Papadopoulos Ulf Persson Kim Plofker John Stillwell David Tall.

Mathematical Practitioners and the Transformation of Natural Knowledge in Early Modern Europe

Mathematical Practitioners and the Transformation of Natural Knowledge in Early Modern Europe
Author: Lesley B. Cormack
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 205
Release: 2017-03-15
Genre: Science
ISBN: 3319494309

This book argues that we can only understand transformations of nature studies in the Scientific Revolution if we take seriously the interaction between practitioners (those who know by doing) and scholars (those who know by thinking). These are not in opposition, however. Theory and practice are end points on a continuum, with some participants interested only in the practical, others only in the theoretical, and most in the murky intellectual and material world in between. It is this borderland where influence, appropriation, and collaboration have the potential to lead to new methods, new subjects of enquiry, and new social structures of natural philosophy and science. The case for connection between theory and practice can be most persuasively drawn in the area of mathematics, which is the focus of this book. Practical mathematics was a growing field in early modern Europe and these essays are organised into three parts which contribute to the debate about the role of mathematical practice in the Scientific Revolution. First, they demonstrate the variability of the identity of practical mathematicians, and of the practices involved in their activities in early modern Europe. Second, readers are invited to consider what practical mathematics looked like and that although practical mathematical knowledge was transmitted and circulated in a wide variety of ways, participants were able to recognize them all as practical mathematics. Third, the authors show how differences and nuances in practical mathematics typically depended on the different contexts in which it was practiced: social, cultural, political, and economic particularities matter. Historians of science, especially those interested in the Scientific Revolution period and the history of mathematics will find this book and its ground-breaking approach of particular interest.

Nominalism and Constructivism in Seventeenth-Century Mathematical Philosophy

Nominalism and Constructivism in Seventeenth-Century Mathematical Philosophy
Author: David Sepkoski
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 214
Release: 2013-05-24
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 113676867X

What was the basis for the adoption of mathematics as the primary mode of discourse for describing natural events by a large segment of the philosophical community in the seventeenth century? In answering this question, this book demonstrates that a significant group of philosophers shared the belief that there is no necessary correspondence between external reality and objects of human understanding, which they held to include the objects of mathematical and linguistic discourse. The result is a scholarly reliable, but accessible, account of the role of mathematics in the works of (amongst others) Galileo, Kepler, Descartes, Newton, Leibniz, and Berkeley. This impressive volume will benefit scholars interested in the history of philosophy, mathematical philosophy and the history of mathematics.

Philosophy of Mathematics: Oxford Bibliographies Online Research Guide

Philosophy of Mathematics: Oxford Bibliographies Online Research Guide
Author: Oxford University Press
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 27
Release: 2010-06-01
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0199808937

This ebook is a selective guide designed to help scholars and students of social work find reliable sources of information by directing them to the best available scholarly materials in whatever form or format they appear from books, chapters, and journal articles to online archives, electronic data sets, and blogs. Written by a leading international authority on the subject, the ebook provides bibliographic information supported by direct recommendations about which sources to consult and editorial commentary to make it clear how the cited sources are interrelated related. This ebook is a static version of an article from Oxford Bibliographies Online: Philosophy, a dynamic, continuously updated, online resource designed to provide authoritative guidance through scholarship and other materials relevant to the study Philosophy. Oxford Bibliographies Online covers most subject disciplines within the social science and humanities, for more information visit www.oxfordbibligraphies.com.