Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-54dcc4c588-r5qjk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-09-12T03:14:48.210Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

1 - Introduction: a role for history

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 September 2009

David Corfield
David Corfield
Affiliation:
University of Oxford
Get access

Summary

To speak informatively about bakery you have got to have put your hands in the dough.

(Diderot, Oeuvres Politiques)

The history of mathematics, lacking the guidance of philosophy, has become blind, while the philosophy of mathematics, turning its back on the most intriguing phenomena in the history of mathematics, has become empty.

(Lakatos, Proofs and Refutations)

REAL MATHEMATICS

To allay any concerns for my mental health which the reader may be feeling if they have come to understand from the book's title that I believe mathematics based on the real numbers deserves singling out for philosophical treatment, let me reassure them that I mean no such thing. Indeed, the glorious construction of complex analysis in the nineteenth century is a paradigmatic example of what ‘real mathematics’ refers to.

The quickest way to approach what I do intend by such a title is to explain how I happened upon it. Several years ago I had been invited to talk to a philosophy of physics group in Cambridge and was looking for a striking title for my paper where I was arguing that philosophers of mathematics should pay much closer attention to the way mathematicians do their research. Earlier, as an impecunious doctoral student, I had been employed by a tutorial college to teach eighteen-year-olds the art of jumping through the hoops of the mathematics ‘A’ level examination.

Information

Type
Chapter
Information
Towards a Philosophy of Real Mathematics , pp. 1 - 34
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2003

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Book purchase

Temporarily unavailable

Accessibility standard: Unknown

Accessibility compliance for the PDF of this book is currently unknown and may be updated in the future.

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×