Monday, March 29, 2010

Philosophical Perspectives on Mathematical Practice

I’m very happy to report that Philosophical Perspectives on Mathematical Practice—a book edited by Bart Van Kerkhove, Jean Paul Van Bendegem, and me—is now available to order.

Here’s the description from the backcover:
It has been observed many times before that, as yet, there are no encompassing, integrated theories of mathematical practice available. To witness, as we currently do, a variety of schools in this field elaborating their philosophical frameworks, and trying to sort out their differences in the course of doing so, is also to be constantly reminded of the fact that a lot of epistemic aspects, extremely relevant to this task, remain dramatically underexamined. This volume wants to contribute to the stock of studies filling this perceived lacuna. It contains papers by established, upcoming, as well as beginning scholars, covering general, metaphilosophical themes such as naturalism, semiotics, pragmaticism, or empiricism, next to more specific topics including the unity of mathematical theories, thruth-flow in mathematics, diagrammatic reasoning, erroneous argumentation, or numerical analysis.