What Is a Mathematical Concept?

ISBN-13: 9781107134638 / Angielski / Twarda / 2017 / 316 str.

Elizabeth de Freitas;Nathalie Sinclair;Alf Coles

Opis

This book provides a contemporary resource for scholars and students whose work takes up the philosophical and sociological dimensions of number, quantity, measure, and mathematics in some manner. Leaders in their fields offer new insights into what is a mathematical concept, drawing on contemporary cultural theory and mathematical practice.

Recenzje

'Mathematics has far too often been a discipline reserved for specialists. Even philosophers have tended to limit their focus to the foundations of mathematics, rather than the productions of contemporary mathematics. This is a wonderful book that reverses this trend. It approaches mathematical concepts from a perspective that is broadly humanistic and interdisciplinary, drawing on disciplines as diverse as history, philosophy, sociology and psychology. Each of the essays is written in a non-technical yet rigorous manner that should be accessible even to the 'mathematically challenged', and taken together they present a richly innovative approach to the ontology of mathematics. This is a timely and user-friendly collection that should help restore mathematics to its rightful place as a central discipline in the humanities.' Daniel Smith, Purdue University, Indiana

Spis treści

Introduction; Part I: 1. Of polyhedra and pyjamas: platonism and induction in meaning-finitist mathematics Michael J. Barany; 2. Mathematical concepts? The view from ancient history Reviel Netz; Part II: 3. On treating mathematical drawings as artworks Juliette Kennedy; 4. Concepts as generative devices Elizabeth de Freitas and Nathalie Sinclair; Part III: 5. Bernhard Riemann's conceptual mathematics and pedagogy of mathematical concepts Arkady Plotnitsky; 6. Deleuze and the conceptualizable character of mathematical theories Simon Duffy; Part IV: 7. The vertical unity of the concept of space David Corfield; 8. The perfectoid concept: test case for an absent theory Michael Harris; Part V: 9. Queering mathematical concepts Heather Mendick; 10. Mathematics concepts in the news Richard Barwell and Yasmine Abtahi; 11. Concepts and commodities in mathematical learning Tony Brown; Part VI: 12. A relational view of mathematical concepts Alf Coles; 13. Cultural concepts concretely Wolff-Michael Roth; Part VII: 14. Ideas as species Brent Davis; 15. Inhabiting mathematical concepts Ricardo Nemirovsky; Afterword. Making a thing of it: some conceptual commentary David Pimm; Index.