Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Logic and Foundations of Mathematics Commons™
Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 1 of 1
Full-Text Articles in Logic and Foundations of Mathematics
Rethinking Geometrical Exactness, Marco Panza
Rethinking Geometrical Exactness, Marco Panza
MPP Published Research
A crucial concern of early modern geometry was fixing appropriate norms for deciding whether some objects, procedures, or arguments should or should not be allowed into it. According to Bos, this is the exactness concern. I argue that Descartes’s way of responding to this concern was to suggest an appropriate conservative extension of Euclid’s plane geometry (EPG). In Section 2, I outline the exactness concern as, I think, it appeared to Descartes. In Section 3, I account for Descartes’s views on exactness and for his attitude towards the most common sorts of constructions in classical geometry. I also explain in …