Other Mathematics Commons^™

A Question Of Fundamental Methodology: Reply To Mikhail Katz And His Coauthors, Tom Archibald, Richard T. W. Arthur, Giovanni Ferraro, Jeremy Gray, Douglas Jesseph, Jesper Lützen, Marco Panza, David Rabouin, Gert Schubring

Philosophy Faculty Articles and Research

This paper is a response by several historians of mathematics to a series of papers published from 2012 onwards by Mikhail Katz and various co-authors, the latest of which was recently published in the Mathematical Intelligencer, “Two-Track Depictions of Leibniz’s Fictions” (Katz, Kuhlemann, Sherry, Ugaglia, and van Atten, 2021). At issue is a question of fundamental methodology. These authors take for granted that non-standard analysis provides the correct framework for historical interpretation of the calculus, and castigate rival interpretations as having had a deleterious effect on the philosophy, practice, and applications of mathematics. Rather than make this case by reasoned …