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34EMILY R. GROSHOLZ. Representation and Productive Ambiguity in Mathematics and the Sciences. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. ISBN 978-0-19-929973-7. Pp. viii + 313 (review)Philosophia Mathematica 20 (2): 245-252. 2012.
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48Michel Serfati. La Révolution Symbolique: La Constitution de l'Ecriture Symbolique Mathématique. Preface by Jacques Bouverasse. Paris: Éditions Petra, 2005. Pp. ix + 427. ISBN 2-84743-006-7 (review)Philosophia Mathematica 15 (1): 122-126. 2007.It is difficult to imagine mathematics without its symbolic language. It is especially difficult to imagine doing mathematics without using mathematical notation. Nevertheless, that is how mathematics was done for most of human history. It was only at the end of the sixteenth century that mathematicians began to develop systems of mathematical symbols . It is startling to consider how rapidly mathematical notation evolved. Viète is usually taken to have initiated this development with his Isagog…Read more
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78Lakatos as historian of mathematicsPhilosophia Mathematica 5 (1): 42-64. 1997.This paper discusses the connection between the actual history of mathematics and Lakatos's philosophy of mathematics, in three parts. The first points to studies by Lakatos and others which support his conception of mathematics and its history. In the second I suggest that the apparent poverty of Lakatosian examples may be due to the way in which the history of mathematics is usually written. The third part argues that Lakatos is right to hold philosophy accountable to history, even if Lakatos'…Read more
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Bransen, JAM and Slors, M.(eds.)-The Problematic Reality of ValuesPhilosophical Books 39 61-61. 1998.
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Proceedings of the Symposium on Mathematical Practice and Cognition Ii: A Symposium at the Aisb/Iacap World Congress 2012 (edited book)Society for the Study of Artificial Intelligence and the Simulation of Behaviour. 2012.
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The Philosophy of Mathematics of Imre LakatosDissertation, Oxford University. 1995.DPhil dissertation, University of Oxford.
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55Re-reading soviet philosophy: Bakhurst on ilyenkovStudies in East European Thought 44 (1): 1-31. 1992.
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29History, methodology and early algebra 1International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 8 (2): 113-124. 1994.The limits of ‘criterial rationality’ (that is, rationality as rule‐following) have been extensively explored in the philosophy of science by Kuhn and others. In this paper I attempt to extend this line of enquiry into mathematics by means of a pair of case studies in early algebra. The first case is the Ars Magna (Nuremburg 1545) by Jerome Cardan (1501–1576), in which a then recently‐discovered formula for finding the roots of some cubic equations is extended to cover all cubics and proved. The…Read more
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25Albert Lautman, ou la dialectique dans les mathématiquesPhilosophiques 37 (1): 75-94. 2010.Dans cet article, j’explore dans un premier temps la conception que se fait Lautman de la dialectique en examinant ses références à Platon et Heidegger. Je compare ensuite les structures dialectiques identifiées par Lautman dans les mathématiques contemporaines avec celles qui émergent de ses sources philosophiques. Enfin, je soutiens que les structures qu’il a découvertes dans les mathématiques sont plus riches que le suggère son modèle platonicien, et que la distinction « ontologique » de Heid…Read more
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426Williams on Dawkins – responseThink 9 (26): 21-27. 2010.Peter Williams complains that Richard Dawkins wraps his naturalism in ‘a fake finery of counterfeit meaning and purpose’. For his part, Williams has wrapped his complaint in an unoriginal and inapt analogy. The weavers in Hans Christian Andersen's fable announce that the Emperor's clothes are invisible to stupid people; almost the whole population pretends to see them for fear of being thought stupid . Fear of being thought stupid does not seem to trouble Richard Dawkins. Moreover, Williams offe…Read more
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66Three is a magic numberThe Philosophers' Magazine 44 (44): 83-88. 2009.Logical theory – and philosophical theory generally – is just that, theory. Generations of logic students felt a sort of unease about it without knowing what to do about it. Nowadays, students of mathematical logic feel a similar unease when faced with the fact that in standard predicate calculus, “All unicorns are sneaky” is true precisely because there are no unicorns. Blanché’s analysis reminds us that such feelings of unease may indicate a shortcoming in the theory rather than in the student…Read more
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210Proof in C17 AlgebraPhilosophia Scientiae 43-59. 2005.By the middle of the seventeenth century we that find that algebra is able to offer proofs in its own right. That is, by that time algebraic argument had achieved the status of proof. How did this transformation come about?
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58Lakatos: An IntroductionRoutledge. 1998._Lakatos: An Introduction_ provides a thorough overview of both Lakatos's thought and his place in twentieth century philosophy. It is an essential and insightful read for students and anyone interested in the philosophy of science.
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300Tu quoque, ArchbishopThink 3 (7): 101-108. 2004.Brendan Larvor finds that the Archbishop of Canterbury's recent arguments about religious education are a curate's egg.
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1Michael D. Resnik, Mathematics as a Science of PatternsInternational Studies in the Philosophy of Science 12 (3): 287-289. 1998.
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142How to think about informal proofsSynthese 187 (2): 715-730. 2012.It is argued in this study that (i) progress in the philosophy of mathematical practice requires a general positive account of informal proof; (ii) the best candidate is to think of informal proofs as arguments that depend on their matter as well as their logical form; (iii) articulating the dependency of informal inferences on their content requires a redefinition of logic as the general study of inferential actions; (iv) it is a decisive advantage of this conception of logic that it accommodat…Read more
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25After Popper, Kuhn and Feyerabend: Recent Issues in Theories of Scientific MethodMetascience 100-104. 2002.
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33What Philosophy of Mathematical Practice Can Teach Argumentation Theory About Diagrams and PicturesIn Andrew Aberdein & Ian J. Dove (eds.), The Argument of Mathematics, Springer. pp. 239--253. 2013.
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47Paolo Mancosu, ed. The Philosophy of Mathematical Practice. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. ISBN 978-0-19-929645-3. Pp. xi + 447: Critical Studies/Book Reviews (review)Philosophia Mathematica 18 (3): 350-360. 2010.(No abstract is available for this citation)
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90What can the Philosophy of Mathematics Learn from the History of Mathematics?Erkenntnis 68 (3): 393-407. 2008.This article canvasses five senses in which one might introduce an historical element into the philosophy of mathematics: 1. The temporal dimension of logic; 2. Explanatory Appeal to Context rather than to General Principles; 3. Heraclitean Flux; 4. All history is the History of Thought; and 5. History is Non-Judgmental. It concludes by adapting Bernard Williams’ distinction between ‘history of philosophy’ and ‘history of ideas’ to argue that the philosophy of mathematics is unavoidably historic…Read more
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339Two CulturesCogito 12 (1): 13-16. 1998.The schism between analytic and continental philosophy resists repair because it is not confined to philosophers. It is a local manifestation of a far more profound and pervasive division. In 1959 C.P. Snow lamented the partition of intellectual life in to `two cultures': that of the scientist and that of the literary intellectual. If we follow the practice of most universities and bundle historical and literary studies together in the faculty of humanities on the one hand, and count pure mathem…Read more
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129Moral particularism and scientific practiceMetaphilosophy 39 (4-5): 492-507. 2008.Abstract: Particularism is usually understood as a position in moral philosophy. In fact, it is a view about all reasons, not only moral reasons. Here, I show that particularism is a familiar and controversial position in the philosophy of science and mathematics. I then argue for particularism with respect to scientific and mathematical reasoning. This has a bearing on moral particularism, because if particularism about moral reasons is true, then particularism must be true with respect to reas…Read more
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123Imre Lakatos and Paul Feyerabend for and against method: Including Lakatos's lectures on scientific method and the Lakatos–Feyerabend correspondence (review)British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 51 (4): 919-922. 2000.
Areas of Specialization
Philosophy of Mathematics |
Areas of Interest
Logic and Philosophy of Logic |
Philosophy of Mathematics |