The Growth of Mathematical Knowledge
By: edited by Emily Grosholz, Herbert Breger
Contributors: Breger, Herbert
Series: Synthese Library, Studies in Epistemology, Logic, Methodology, and Philosophy of Science -- 289; Synthese Library, Studies in Epistemology, Logic, Methodology, and Philosophy of Science -- 289
Publisher: Springer Netherlands
Published: 2000
Place of publication: Dordrecht
Language: eng
Format: [electronic resource] /
Number of pages: 428
ISBN-13: 9789048153916; 9789401595582
Subjects: Philosophy (General); Symbolic and mathematical Logic; Logic; Science; Philosophy; History
Description: This book draws its inspiration from Hilbert, Wittgenstein, Cavaillès and Lakatos and is designed to reconfigure contemporary philosophy of mathematics by making the growth of knowledge rather than its foundations central to the study of mathematical rationality, and by analyzing the notion of growth in historical as well as logical terms. Not a mere compendium of opinions, it is organised in dialogical forms, with each philosophical thesis answered by one or more historical case studies designed to support, complicate or question it. The first part of the book examines the role of scientific theory and empirical fact in the growth of mathematical knowledge. The second examines the role of abstraction, analysis and axiomatization. The third raises the question of whether the growth of mathematical knowledge constitutes progress, and how progress may be understood. Readership: Students and scholars concerned with the history and philosophy of mathematics and the formal sciences.
Notes: Online full text is restricted to subscribers.

Also available in print.

Mode of access: World Wide Web.