The mathematics of the past: distinguishing its history from our heritage
type: Item
instance of: scholarly article
title: The mathematics of the past: distinguishing its history from our heritage
zbMATH Open document ID: 1063.01023
DOI: 10.1016/S0315-0860(03)00032-6
published in: Historia Mathematica
publication date: 2004-08-19T00:00:00Z
review text: This is a methodological and philosophical paper about the problem how to conceive history, particularly of mathematics, within the process of the development of and the reflection about scientific theories. The author stresses the importance, and independence, of the strongly historical approaches as well as the reflections about the past from the modern point of view of a theory, the ``heritage'' point of view as he calls it. He explains both viewpoints by nice examples, and points to the danger to confuse them. And he argues for the metatheoretical character of both of these points of view, which makes them quite similar to philosophical considerations, and he explains their hierarchical iterability.
reviewed by: Siegfried J. Gottwald
Mathematics Subject Classification ID: 01A85
Mathematics Subject Classification ID: 00A30
Mathematics Subject Classification ID: 97D20
zbMATH DE Number: 2092857
zbMATH Keywords: methodology of history
zbMATH Keywords: knowledge and ignorance
author: Ivor Grattan-Guinness
MaRDI profile type: Publication
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full work available at URL: s0315-0860(03)00032-6
OpenAlex ID: W2056558678
description: scientific article; zbMATH DE number 2092857