num_pages: 484
description: Mathematics is not what many people think it is - it is not a system of mere formulas and theorems. Mathematics is the science of "exact thought or rigorous thinking," and one of its distinctive characteristics is "precision, sharpness, completeness of definitions." This quality alone is sufficient to explain why people generally do not like mathematics and why even some scientists bluntly refuse to have anything to do with problems wherein mathematical reasoning is involved. In the meantime, mathematical philosophy has very little, if anything, to do with mere calculations or with numbers as such or with formulas; it is a philosophy wherein precise, sharp and rigorous thinking is essential. Those who deliberately refuse to think "rigorously"--that is mathematically--in connections where such thinking is possible, commit the sin of preferring the worse to the better; they deliberately violate the supreme law of intellectual rectitude. For years Keyser meditated upon the nature of mathematics, upon its significance in thought, and upon its bearings on human life. In the following course of lectures he endeavored to present, in the language of educated men and women, some of the maturer fruits of that study. Though the course is designed primarily for students whose major interest is in philosophy, Keyser ventured to hope that a much wider circle of readers and scholars might enjoy the lectures. To all the professional mathematicians, the teachers of mathematics, natural science students, literary critics, sociologists and the rapidly increasing class of engineers who desire to come into touch with the universal spirit of the science that Plato called divine. In 1922, when Mathematical Philosophy was originally published, Dr. Cassius J. Keyser was Adrain Professor Mathematics at Columbia University, New York.
language: English
title: Mathematical Philosophy
titlecomplete: Mathematical Philosophy
ratings_count: 4
publisher: Univ Pr of the Pacific