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Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons

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Mathematics

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

2019

Philosophy

Articles 1 - 2 of 2

Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics

Book Review: What Is A Mathematical Concept? Edited By Elizabeth De Freitas, Nathalie Sinclair, And Alf Coles, Brendan P. Larvor Jul 2019

Book Review: What Is A Mathematical Concept? Edited By Elizabeth De Freitas, Nathalie Sinclair, And Alf Coles, Brendan P. Larvor

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

This is a review of What is a Mathematical Concept? edited by Elizabeth de Freitas, Nathalie Sinclair, and Alf Coles (Cambridge University Press, 2017). In this collection of sixteen chapters, philosophers, educationalists, historians of mathematics, a cognitive scientist, and a mathematician consider, problematise, historicise, contextualise, and destabilise the terms ‘mathematical’ and ‘concept’. The contributors come from many disciplines, but the editors are all in mathematics education, which gives the whole volume a disciplinary centre of gravity. The editors set out to explore and reclaim the canonical question ‘what is a mathematical concept?’ from the philosophy of mathematics. This review comments …


Incorporating Philosophy, Theology, And The History Of Mathematics In An Introduction To Proof Course, Steven Deckelman Jan 2019

Incorporating Philosophy, Theology, And The History Of Mathematics In An Introduction To Proof Course, Steven Deckelman

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

In this article I describe a project activity for an undergraduate introduction to proof course aimed at mathematics and computer science majors that combines logic and philosophy with a significant dimension of writing. Pedagogically, the project involves a broader range of critical thinking skills than is usual in such courses. Undergraduate students analyze Anselm of Canterbury's and Kurt Gödel's proofs of the existence of God using modal logic.