Knowledge and community in mathematics

Title: Knowledge and community in mathematics
Creator: Borwein, Jonathan; Stanway, Terry
Relation: Mathematical Intelligencer Vol. 27, Issue 2, p. 7-16
Publisher Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF02985788
Publisher: Springer
Resource Type: journal article
Date: 2005
Description: Henri Lebesgue once remarked that "a mathematician, in so far as he is a mathematician, need not preoccupy himself with philosophy." He went on to add that this was "an opinion, moreover, which has been expressed by many philosophers." The idea that mathematicians can do mathematics without a precise philosophical understanding of what they are doing is, by observation, mercifully true. However, while a neglect of philosophical issues does not impede mathematical discussion, discussion about mathematics quickly becomes embroiled in philosophy, and perforce encompasses the question of the nature of mathematical knowledge. Within this discussion, some attention has been paid to the resonance between the failure of twentieth-century efforts to enunciate a comprehensive, absolute foundation for mathematics and the postmodern deconstruction of meaning and its corresponding banishment of encompassing philosophical perspectives from the centre fixe.
Subject: mathematicians; mathematics; mathematical community
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/940718
Identifier: uon:13091
Identifier: ISSN:0343-6993
Language: eng
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