CAN THE DEVELOPMENT OF MATHEMATICS BE UNDERSTOOD AS A PROCESS OF UNFOLDING?

In: The international journal of sociology and social policy, Band 5, Heft 1, S. 54-67

Abstract

Mathematics is a hybrid subject with the idea of number tending to unfold while some major geometrical innovations cannot be understood in these terms. The deployment of evolutionary, critical and non‐evolutionary structuralist conceptions in the analysis of mathematical development draws the conclusion that, in order to fully understand this development, it is necessary to consider mathematics' relations with other (artistic and scientific) concerns, the tendencies implicit in its subsystems, and the connections between its various fields, as well as the ability of mathematicians to appraise critically any given formulation and thereby transcend it.