Hillsdale College HonoUrs Program HON 402

Mathematics and the Liberal Arts:

By

Hannah Mahan

An HonoUrs Thesis Submitted to

Mahan 2 Prof. Donald Westblade, Dr. Bradley Birzer, and Dr. David Stewart

Mahan 3 Mathematics and the Liberal Arts Numbers, shapes, formulas, theorems, proofs. What exactly is mathematics? To describe is one thing, but to define is quite another. To know how a thing can be used, one must know the nature of that thing. But what kind of thing is mathematics? Does mathematics penetrate to the inmost nature of things as the Pythagoreans believed; or does it simply provide a convenient representation of physical phenomena as many believe today?1 Western history, instead of answering this question, has wrangled over it for centuries. Today we often focus on the practical aspects of mathematics: Why study math? Because it develops the reasoning faculties of the mind, we answer, and provides the mechanics for scientific research; but beyond this we have nothing more to say. We no longer elevate it to the metaphysical and epistemological realms as did Plato, and this has directly affected our pedagogy. In a world where math is simply an elegant tool, directly applicable to science, there is little incentive to ask why the tool works or how it developed. We are like children who can draw beautiful pictures with our crayons but fail to realize that crayons are designed for coloring books and not living room walls. Our understanding of mathematics being so depreciated, we fail even to ask the questions haggled over for so many centuries and constrain mathematics to the practical realm. I would argue, however, that the questions need to be asked. The history and philosophy of mathematics ought to be taught at the university level. It would be poor pedagogy for a master chef to train his pupils by merely handing them recipes to bake; to teach effectively, he must sit down and explain to them that it is the yeast and not the sugar that makes the bread to rise. If he fails to explain this, his students may become very fine automatic bread machines, but

Alfred North Whitehead, Mathematics as an Element in the History of Thought, in The World of Mathematics, James R. Newman, ed. (New York, 1956):417.

Mahan 4 they will never become chefs. The same principle applies to instruction in mathematics. A mathematics student who has been given a research topic in mathematics but has never been shown historically how mathematics develops will be hampered in his ability to become an able mathematician. Mathematics: A Unique Field I confess. I am obsessed with the philosophy of mathematics. Thus, when I espied a book on the shelf called Mathematical Theory of Human Relations, my interest was piqued.2 Even II who am quite eager to extend mathematics into every field of thought squirmed at the title of this book. I was willing to accept the authors premise, that human interaction can be related mathematically, upon proof, but I was skeptical. It turns out I had much to be skeptical about; the book was by no means convincing. But it raised important questions nevertheless: it spurred consideration of the boundaries of mathematics, exploration of its proper sphere, and assessment of its applications. The very fact that men of every century have tried to extend mathematics, a science whose application seems to be relegated solely to the physical world, into every sphere of thought, raises questions. Descartes applied mathematics to philosophy, Pascal to the question of belief, and art critiques often try to explain beauty using mathematics. And yet, . . .and yet, . . . all these attempts fail. There is an urge within us to impose mathematics upon distant disciplines, and, even when we realize the absurdity of applying it thus, we still press on. Poe points out the beauty of the human face lies not in mathematical perfection, but in mathematical imperfection. Yet, we still rejoice in the symmetry of the human body, calling its proportions beautiful.

N. Rashevsky. Mathematical Theory of Human Relations (Bloomington, Indiana, 1949)

Mahan 5 Why this urge? It is no new urge. Plato and Pythagoras of the 4th and 6th centuries B.C. saw something in mathematics which we today, in our focus on technology advancement, often overlook. Jourdain hints at this when he compares discoveries in science and mathematics with Columbus discovery of America, writing, Some of us discover things in science, but we do not really create anything in science any more than Columbus created America. rather, Mathematics with a capital M exists outside of us; our discovery of it does not affect the Truth itself, but only the extent to which we or others see it. It is outside of and independent of us. He writes, The reason why mathematics is important is that Mathematics is not incomprehensible, though it is eternal and unchanging.3 Mathematics is one of the few bodies of knowledge before the Enlightenment to have been consistently considered eternal, unchanging, and true. Philosophical views wax and wane, psychology changes its mind frequently, and history is changed by new discoveries of the past, but mathematics, both in the modern and the ancient mind, seems to hold a special place. Michael Dennis points out that science differs from other forms of knowledge because of it public professions of truthfulness and universality.4 Thus says Dennis, but not all Western thinkers would agree, Plato being one dissenter. Plato attributed truthfulness and universality not to what we today call science, but to mathematics. The Philosophy of Mathematics Many minds have attempted to account for this unique discipline of mathematics, to explain and describe it. Each have attempted to build a coherent, nay, even mathematical prescription for what is mathematics, and out of these attempts have arisen various philosophical schools of thought. Though it often seems that the number of schools be as various as the
3

Philip E. B. Jourdain, The Nature of Mathematics, in The World of Mathematics, James R. Newman, ed. (New York, 1956):67. 4 John Krige and Dominique Pestre, ed. Science in the Twentieth Century (Amsterdam, 1997):1.

Mahan 6 number of minds attempting explanation, a representative knowledge of the philosophy of mathematics can be gained by studying the five primarily schools of mathematics philosophy. Here I will specifically address Realism, Empiricism, Intuitionism, Formalism, and Logicism. Realism says mathematics is independent of the physical senses and, to that extent, is a priori.5 Famous mathematical theorists such as G.H Hardy and K. Gdel fall within the realist camp, along with the Platonists. Let us take the Platonists as an example of realism. According to the Platonists, [t]here are mathematical objects, such as the natural numbers, which exist independently of human minds, and all these objects are immaterial objects.6 For the Platonist, mathematical truth exists outside of the human, whether or not the human perceives it. More will be said below about this. The empiricist camp, on the other hand, treats mathematics like any other science. For the empiricist, chemistry and mathematics alike are based on observation of the physical world through use of the senses. John Stewart Mill, Quine, and Putnam are leaders in this camp. The empiricist rejects a priori mathematical truth and employs the indispensability argumentthe argument that mathematics is necessary to the other empirical sciencesto support their position. The empiricist camp, however, finds difficulty accounting for the more abstract branches of mathematics that do not seem instinctively to correspond to the physical world. The intuitionists solve this difficulty by placing mathematics entirely within the human mind. The mathematician intuits the basic mathematical objects, such as the natural numbers, and then, using some finite procedure, mentally constructs other mathematical objects from these basic objects.7 They believe that,
5

James Robert Brown. Philosophy of Mathematics: An Introduction to the World of Proofs and Pictures (New York, 1999):13. 6 W.S. Anglin. The Philosophy of Mathematics: The Invisible Art (Lewiston, N.Y., 1997):59. 7 W.S. Anglin. The Philosophy of Mathematics: The Invisible Art (Lewiston, N.Y., 1997):54.

Mahan 7 mathematical objects are by their very nature dependent on human thought. Their existence is guaranteed only insofar as they can be determined by thought. They have properties only insofar as these can be discerned in them by thought. But this possibility of knowledge is revealed to us only by the act of knowing itself. Faith in transcendental existence, unsupported by concepts, must be rejected as a means of mathematical truth.8 Speaking from the intuitionist camp, Anglin in his Philosophy of Mathematics compares mathematics to fiction literature: The mathematician produces theories which help us understand the physical world; the storyteller relates tales which help us comprehend the human soul.9 Intuitionists begin with the intuitively known ordinary numbers and upon such selfevident propositions base their mathematical theory.10 Recognized spokesmen of this camp are L.E.J. Brouwer and Arend Heyting, but much of intuitionism comes from a Kantian view of mathematics intuition.11 A third group, the formalists, say that the objects of mathematics are the material signs used to represent them in mathematical literature.12 Mathematics not only operates by symbols and string manipulation rules, but can be defined by these symbols. Formalism frees one to find uses of expressions in reasoning whose utility and justification is independent of the (semantic) contents of those expressions,13 but Anglin at the same time points out that a weakness of

8
9

A. Heyting quoted by W.S. Anglin. The Philosophy of Mathematics: The Invisible Art (Lewiston, N.Y., 1997):54. W.S. Anglin. The Philosophy of Mathematics: The Invisible Art (Lewiston, N.Y., 1997):55. 10 Nancy R. Pearcy and Charles B. Thaxton. The Soul of Science: Christian Faith and Natural Philosophy (Weaton, IL, 1994):148. 11 Hugh Lehman. Introduction to the Philosophy of Mathematics (New Jersey, 1979):91. 12 W.S. Anglin. The Philosophy of Mathematics: The Invisible Art (Lewiston, N.Y., 1997):57. 13 Stewart Shapiro, Ed. The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Mathematics and Logic (New York, 2005):237.

Mahan 8 formalism is that it sees mathematics as a language without meaning. The words need not have reference; the discourse need not have purpose or utility.14 Finally, logicism sees mathematics as a mere branch of logic, created by mans use of his rational faculty. For the logicists, Mathematics has no different grounding or application in reality than modern logic. All five of these philosophies of mathematics together represent the variety of thought that has gone into the field, affecting the way in which generations of mathematicians have discoveredor created, as the intuitionist might say,mathematical truths. Each camp seeks to find an epistemological basis for mathematics, but each comes to a different conclusion. Historical Context Historically it was realism that first established mathematics as a branch of knowledge. Realism can be referred back to the Greeks and the Pythagoreans. Prior to the Pythagoreans, there were the Egyptians, often called the masters of practical geometry, but it was the Pythagoreans who invented the term mathematics and formed mathematics into a distinct discipline.15 The Pythagoreans in their day were more than what we today would think of as a mathematical societythey were more than a society for the promotion of mathematicsand as such they did more than simply explore numbers, for they also engendered a distinct philosophy of mathematics. Alfred North Whitehead writes that, Pythagoras is said to have taught that the mathematical entities, such as numbers and shapes, were the ultimate stuff out of which the real entities of our perceptual experience are constructed.16 Or as David L. Wagner writes, The

14 15

W.S. Anglin. The Philosophy of Mathematics: The Invisible Art (Lewiston, N.Y., 1997):58. Herbert Westren Turnbull, The Great Mathematicians, in The World of Mathematics, James R. Newman, ed. (New York, 1956):85. 16 Alfred North Whitehead, Mathematics as an Element in the History of Thought, in The World of Mathematics, James R. Newman, ed. (New York, 1956):409.

Mahan 9 central principle of the early Pythagoreans was that all is number.17 Number, for the Pythagoreans, is the generative principle of the universe. Had the Pythagoreans not elevated mathematics from the practical geometry of the Egyptians, it is unlikely it would have been taken up by Plato. Plato took the next step and provided metaphysical justification for the Pythagorean conception of the universe.18 Mathematics, Plato believed, has the power of turning the souls eye from the material world to objects of pure thought.19 Mathematics is science in the proper sense, yielding a priori certain knowledge of immutable and external objects and truths. For [Plato] there could be no natural science, no exact knowledge of perishable and ever changing sensible things. The modern technique of seeking laws of phenomena in the sensible world by observation and experiment was unknown to the ancients. Knowledge, Plato thought, was to be found, not by starting from fact observed by the senses, framing tentative generalizations, and then returning to the facts for confirmation, but by turning away and escaping as fast as possible from all sensible appearances.20 Mathematics has the ability to take one beyond the material universe to the realm of abstraction, approachable only by the mind. Says Whitehead, The platonic world of ideas is the refined, revised form of the Pythagorean doctrine that number lies at the base of the real world.21 As such, it becomes central to Platos educational scheme in The Republic. Students of Plato studied mathematics because it brought them closer to true knowledge of the universe, not because it would help them build better homes or manage their businesses.
17 18

David L. Wagner. The Seven Liberal Arts in the Middle Ages (Bloomington, Indiana, 1986):3. David L. Wagner. The Seven Liberal Arts in the Middle Ages (Bloomington, Indiana, 1986):4. 19 Plato. The Republic of Plato Francis MacDonald Cornford, ed. (New York, 1981):23. 20 Plato. The Republic of Plato Francis MacDonald Cornford, ed. (New York, 1981):23. 21 Alfred North Whitehead, Mathematics as an Element in the History of Thought, in The World of Mathematics, James R. Newman, ed. (New York, 1956):409.

Mahan 10 Let no one who is unacquainted with geometry enter here, was written over Platos door.22 Mathematics provided access to the higher things, and was dependent not on the physical world, but on the rational mind. Because of his realist approach to mathematics and its appeal to the seeker of knowledge, Plato has been called the maker of mathematicians.23 Cajori in his A History of Mathematics points out that it was the speculative nature of the Greeks that brought about mathematics: The Egyptians carried geometry no further than was absolutely necessary for their practical wants. The Greeks, on the other hand, had within them a strong speculative tendency. They felt a craving to discover the reasons for things. They found pleasure in the contemplation of ideal relations, and loved science as science.24 Euclid, a few years later, went a step further than the Pythagoreans and found a way to go about discovering mathematical truthshe founded the axiomatic-deductive method. Mathematical knowledge is absolute and infallible, Euclid said, because it begins with selfevident axioms or postulates and derives all further truths by deductive reasoning.25 For centuries after Euclid, a realist conception of mathematics prevailed with Plato as its proponent and Euclid as its textbook. As the West became Christianized, mathematical realism translated easily into the European temperament where mathematics became a sign of Gods order in the universe. Mathematics grew to be presented either as sets of facts useful for scriptural allegory or as evidence of the harmonic influence of divine guidance in the world.26 It was not until later, with the rise of empirical science and skepticism, that epistemological conceptions of mathematics

22 23

Florian Cajori. A History of Mathematics (New York, 1893):29. Florian Cajori. A History of Mathematics (New York, 1893):33. 24 Florian Cajori. A History of Mathematics (New York, 1893):16. 25 Nancy R. Pearcy and Charles B. Thaxton. The Soul of Science: Christian Faith and Natural Philosophy (Weaton, IL, 1994):125. 26 Bruce A. Kimball. Orators and Philosophers: A History of the Idea of Liberal Education (New York, 1995):45.

Mahan 11 began to change more drastically. At this time philosophers such as Hume began asking, How do we know that the deductive reasoning pursued by the human mind has any analogue in the outside world?27 Pearcey calls this question the axe of skepticism and 18th century Hume answers his own question by declaring mathematics to be merely a system of tautologies. About this same time, the prestige and certainty of Euclidian geometrywhich for over two thousand years seemed the ideal systemboth a product of reason and a description of the physical world28as a certain principle was attacked by the rise of non-Euclidian geometry and The idea that logical truth could be separated from physical truth represented a massive shift in Western intellectual history.29 Suddenly academia found itself not only bereft Pythagorean mysticism, but also of the religious underpinnings of a God-created, orderly universe, and was left with only skepticism. Many of the branches of philosophy mentioned above arose to answer the problem and provide an adequate epistemological foundation for mathematics. And All this Matters, Why? Mathematics, like any other discipline, is contextual. We often fail to acknowledge this fact. The red marks on our 5nd grade math tests taught us that in mathematics there are absolute answers; it taught us that while perhaps in English class there is freedom to interpret texts, in mathematics, on the other hand, answers are objectively right or wrong. Thus we grew up thinking of mathematics as fact outside of ourselves. But in 5th grade we were studying fractions and geometry, and today mathematics has moved on and continues to develop, thus so must our understanding continue to develop.

27

Nancy R. Pearcy and Charles B. Thaxton. The Soul of Science: Christian Faith and Natural Philosophy (Weaton, IL, 1994):138. 28 Nancy R. Pearcy and Charles B. Thaxton. The Soul of Science: Christian Faith and Natural Philosophy (Weaton, IL, 1994):144. 29 Nancy R. Pearcy and Charles B. Thaxton. The Soul of Science: Christian Faith and Natural Philosophy (Weaton, IL, 1994):125.

Mahan 12 History teaches us that developments in mathematics are constrained by whatever epistemological bubble the human mind assigns them. According to the idealist camp of historiography, math history has not been a mere accumulation of positive knowledge, but rather scientific change is a result of conceptual changeof new ideas, concepts and worldviews.30 The idealist believes Science does not consist simply in positive discoveries; it consists, above all, in ideas.31 Though the Egyptians had a working knowledge of geometric principles just as Euclid had, they did not develop an axiomatic system of geometry like Euclid. Why? Because the possibility of such as system was not within the confines of their conception of mathematics. In like manner, the mathematician today is confined by whatever view of mathematics he possesses. But the problem is, the mathematician of today does not know to what view he has confined himself. John Henry Newman writes that We cannot do without a view, and we put up with an illusion, when we cannot get a truth.32 What illusion are we putting up with? The illusion of the mathematics text book. A standard college Calculus text does not speak directly on the historical or philosophical context of mathematics. Kuhn, in his book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, makes an apt argument about science history which can be carried over and applied to mathematics: History, if viewed as a repository for more than anecdote or chronology, could produce a decisive transformation in the image of science by which we are now possessed. That image has previously been drawn, even by scientists themselves, mainly from the study of finished scientific achievements as these are recorded in the classics and, more recently, in the textbooks from which each new scientific
30

Nancy R. Pearcey and Charles B. Thaxton. The Soul of Science: Christian Faith and Natural Philosophy (Weaton, IL, 1994): 49. 31 Nancy R. Pearcey and Charles B. Thaxton. The Soul of Science: Christian Faith and Natural Philosophy (Weaton, IL, 1994): 52. 32 John Henry Newman, The Idea of a University (Notre Dame, Indiana 1986)

Mahan 13 generation learns to practice its trade. Inevitably, however, the aim of such books is persuasive and pedagogic; a concept of science drawn from them is no more likely to fit the enterprise that produced them than an image of a national culture drawn from a tourist brochure of a language texts. This essay attempts to show that we have been misled by them in fundamental ways. Its aim is a sketch of the quite different concept of science that can emerge from the historical record of the research activity itself.33 Kuhns mission is to show that science has never progressed historically in the way one might be led to believe by a Chemistry 101 book. He states instead that, No natural history can be interpreted in the absence of at least some implicit body of intertwined theoretical and methodological belief that permits selection, evaluation, and criticism. . If that body of belief is not already implicit in the collection of factsin which case more than mere facts are at handit must be externally supplied, perhaps by a current metaphysic, by another science, or by personal and historical accident.34 Kuhn is essentially saying that he whose conception of science is a Chemistry 101 book is bound to be a poor research scientist. Only by understanding science history will the true nature of science be revealed. The same could be said for mathematics. Mathematics did not develop in the way students of secondary mathematics textbooks seem to conceive. Mathematics through history has not been simply the march of the mind forward; it has not been merely the gradual accumulation of cold hard mathematical facts and theorems, but rather each development has been imbedded in the worldview or philosophy of the mathematician who shaped it. So for no
33
34

Thomas S. Kuhn. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago, 1970):1. Thomas S. Kuhn. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago, 1970):16.

Mahan 14 other reason than to avoid an improper view of mathematics, mathematics history and philosophy ought to be studied.

Few will directly oppose the teaching of math history and philosophy, but there are many who consider it ancillary. Technology Institutions, they say, have little need for this knowledge, it so little affects their mission. Technology is a broad concept that deals with a species usage and knowledge of tools and crafts, and how it affects a species' ability to control and adapt to its enviroment.35 One does not need to know about Egyptian arithmetic to understand 2+2= 4, nor do we tell a 1st grader he must learn about Euclid before he can draw proper circles. A student of technology has his hands full enough exploring the storehouse of mathematical knowledge; there is little extra time or benefit to be derived from studying the history and philosophy of mathematics. These additional subjects might be interesting, certainly, and perhaps even illuminating, but they are unnecessary and outside of the realm of mathematical knowledge. Interested students are free to pick them up as a hobby or study them on their own, but a student is better off taking a second semester of numerical analysis than a class on the history of mathematics. Such is the common conception, stated or unstated. And it is true, as far as it goes: one does not need to know the historical origins of geometry to build a bridge. But this is only another instance of the beauty of mathematicsan art which exists in its own distinct realm but yet confidently corresponds to the physical world. The fact that mathematics can grow and be applied to science without our understanding the nature of its correspondence to the physical world does not dismiss us from the obligation of knowing. We may rightly apply trigonometry to house-building because we understand innately that the two correspond. But then when we have thinkers applying mathematics to social interaction and
35

Wikipedia article on Technology.

Mahan 15 historical interpretation, we can say nothing in criticism because though we understand mathematics, we are so busy exploring its intricate formulas we have not stepped back to realize it is not the only branch of knowledge out there. There is truth, and mathematics is but a part of this truth. Imagine a student recently graduated with a mathematics degree being asked by a potential employer, What is the nature of mathematics? The mathematics student blushes, stumbles over his words and realizes that in the course of studying mathematics for four years, he had never stopped to think about what it was he was doing. This is not to discredit all that he has learned, for he might be a fine mathematician, but for a moment he fears that he has become simply a human calculator. He is confident he knows all the formulas and theorems, and even how to apply them, but like a computer he has never asked why, but only how, trusting his textbook authors as a computer trusts its programmer. Again, it can be argued that small liberal arts colleges are not properly equipped to teach the history and philosophies of mathematics. But would you leave the history of art out of the art departments curriculum? One cannot teach art without teaching art history, you reply. Neither, I would argue, can one teach mathematics in its liberal arts context without furnishing this courseworkit is an integral part of the liberal arts curriculum.

So mathematics history reveals the nature of mathematics in a way that a Calculus textbook does notbut why is this important to the liberal arts? To make a connection clear and distinct, we must take a short detour and consider what is the aim of a liberal arts student and a mathematician, respectively.

Mahan 16 The liberal arts could be called the humanizing arts. According to the ancient Greeks from whom much of our educational philosophy is derivedmen are rational animals who Aristotle states by nature desire to know. The liberal arts, therefore, are the pursuit of knowledge, of wisdom, and particularly of knowledge about certain causes and first principles.36 Enkuklios paideia is the ancient Greek term associated with the liberal arts; it can be translated general studies, and from this term we get the word Encyclopedia. What is an encyclopedia but a collection of all known knowledge on each individual entry in the book? An encyclopedia entry on the no longer existent Delian League might be nine columns long while the entry on Uranium contains barely two columns, for it does not ask the question, What is the most useful knowledge? but What knowledge do we have in this area?37 The liberal arts approach learning as an encyclopedia: they bid us study because there is knowledge to be learned, not because knowledge is merely useful. Sure, it is useful to know the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus, for by it we have sent men to the moon. But this is not the sole reason we learn mathematics. Heide states that We teach mathematicsand I am thinking of all levels of teaching from primary school to universityfor precisely the same reason that we teach any other subject: because it is there. It is part of the common heritage and must not be withheld from new generations.38 John Henry Newman uses the analogy of a pie.39 The pie is our view of reality and each slice of the pie is an academic discipline. In order to have a true view of reality and ourselves, each piece of the pie must occupy its own space and protect its own territory. We must not allow economics to make our aesthetic decisions, or science to tell us what music to play because each
36

Aristotle. Metaphysics in The Complete Works of Aristotle, Vol. 2, Jonathan Barnes, ed. (Princeton, New Jersey, 1984 )66. 37 Mark Kalthoff, Artes Liberales Lecture on 3.13.07 38 Torkil Heiede. Why Teach History of Mathematics? in The Mathematical Gazette, Vol. 76, No. 475 (Mar., 1992):151. 39 John Henry Newman, The Idea of a University (Notre Dame, Indiana 1986)

Mahan 17 discipline has its own field. Newman writes, I say, then, that the systematic omission of any one science from the catalogue prejudices the accuracy and completeness of our knowledge altogether.40 It is for this reason that the liberal arts student must study the philosophy and history of mathematics. Just as one cannot know what kind of creature a things is without knowing the nature of the thing; similarly, one cannot know what slice of the pie belongs to mathematics without knowing its nature. Calculus is good to know, but it is also important to know that Calculus perhaps ought not be applied to human relationships as Rashevsky tried to do in The Mathematical Theory of Human Relations, or applied to the major events in history as he tried to do in Looking at History Through Mathematics.41 It has been clear since the time of the early Greeks that mathematics rightly claims a piece of the pie, but the question is, which piece? And how do we keep its proper dimensions when our object is an accurate picture of reality? A historical and philosophical perspective of math answers these questions and others like them. Such are the reasons a liberal arts student ought study the philosophy and history of mathematics, but what about the mathematician? The mathematician of today, unlike the mathematician of yesterday, is not necessarily a student of the liberal arts, so while his reasons for studying the history and philosophy of math are similar, they are not necessarily the same. As discussed above, mathematics today is often viewed as merely utilitarian. We train a mathematician to comprehend the great theorems, teach him to apply these theorems to a variety of problems, and then consider him educated. But compare the man who has been taught this paucity of knowledge to the one who adds to this an understanding of the historical development of mathematics, the great figureheads of mathematics, and the role mathematics plays in the human understanding of knowledge. The former will be able to build a bridge, but the latter is
40

41

John Henry Newman, The Idea of a University (Notre Dame, Indiana 1986) N. Rashevsky. Looking at History Through Mathematics (Cambridge, Mass, 1968)

Mahan 18 going to understand the subject more fully and be better equipped to apply its methods to new fields. The former, like our chef students above, has been handed recipes, but the latter knows how to use them. Jourdain points out, But it is as true as it is natural that we should find that the best way to become acquainted with new ideas is to study the way in which knowledge about them grew up.42 Just as when we learn about a friends childhood we come to know him better through that knowledge, knowing the roots of mathematics swells our understanding of mathematics itself. In explanation of why they wrote a book on famous mathematicians, Reinhard Laubenbacher and David Pengelley write, While a second-hand account of a mathematical expedition might seem more orderly than a description of the explorer, it will likely lack the excitement, immediacy, and insights of a story told by someone who was there. . . Our goal is to throw light on the mathematical world we live in today, and we believe that its history is essential to understanding and appreciation.43 It is an accepted fact that art students will take history of art courses, musicians will take history of music, and English students will form a historical framework through their study of literature, but the same cannot be said for mathematicsmathematicians often do not take a history of mathematics course. One might defend this practice. It could be argued, for instance, that mathematics is by nature different from these arts and therefore is taught differently: for whereas an understanding of art hardly seems possible without having seen a painting, and music makes little sense in the abstract, one can learn how to multiply without knowing who the intuitionalists are. True. It is possible to learn mathematical theorems, and even to practice them, without knowing anything of the history of mathematics. But that knowledge will be

42

Philip E. B. Jourdain, The Nature of Mathematics, in The World of Mathematics, James R. Newman, ed. (New York, 1956):8. 43 Reinhard Laubenbacher and David Pengelley. Mathematical Expeditions: Chronicles by the Explorers (1998) found at http://www.math.nmsu.edu/%7Ehistory/book/preface.html

Mahan 19 diminutive. Aristotle points out that the man we consider wise is the man who not only has the practical wisdom to operate the machine, but also the wisdom to know how and why the machine works.44 Likewise, the wise mathematician is the one who understands not only the theorems of differential calculus, but how differential calculus came into being and upon what assumptions it rests. One might believe with the empiricist that mathematics is simply another empirical science. Or he might believe with the realist that mathematics is the intellects apprehension of an internal system of the universe, realized apart from sensory comprehension. Which he believes effects how he will employ mathematics. In the following quote, Alfred North Whitehead provides a critique of the empiricist outlook, saying, The science of pure mathematics, in its modern developments, may claim to be the most original creation of the human spirit. . . . The originality of mathematics consists in the fact that in mathematical science connections between things are exhibited in which, apart from the agency of human reason, are extremely unobvious. Thus the ideas, now in the mind of contemporary mathematician, lie very remote from any notions which can be immediately derived by perception through the senses; unless indeed it be perception stimulated and guided by antecedent mathematical knowledge.45 If the Empiricist is right, these ideas of contemporary math Whitehead speaks of do not belong to the realm of mathematics. If mathematics is based on observation of the physical world, mathematics that has no intuitive relation to the natural world and must be thrown out. If one would be an empiricist, he must actively conform his mathematical practices to his belief.
44

Aristotle. Metaphysics in The Complete Works of Aristotle, Vol. 2, Jonathan Barnes, ed. (Princeton, New Jersey, 1984 )66. 45 Alfred North Whitehead, Mathematics as an Element in the History of Thought, in The World of Mathematics, James R. Newman, ed. (New York, 1956):402.

Mahan 20 One way, of course, of determining which camp of mathematical philosophy one belongs to, is by studying history. By looking at how mathematicians of the past have viewed mathematics and what discoveries their beliefs have led them to gives significant guidance to the human mind. I am not prepared here to argue for any one of the philosophical camps, but merely that they ought to be studied. A students knowledge of mathematics ought to be expansive enough to illuminate not the just the internal beauty of mathematics, but its relation to the rest of human knowledge. He ought to know, whenever possible, not only the hows but also the whys . Conclusion Heide writes, Now where does history [of mathematics] come into all of this? In the same way in which history comes in everywhere else. Man is a historical creature; it is that which makes the difference between man and every other creature on the earth.46 In the end, this is why the history and philosophy of mathematics ought to be taught alongside mathematical theory courses. In our everyday life, we base our immediate actions upon our understanding of history. Yesterday morning there was a floor under my bed, so this morning I will assume there is still a floor under my bed. When we think of an idea, we think of it in relation to the men who fashioned it and the men who practiced it because knowledge is a product of the human mind, not simply the product of a textbook. If we teach mathematics in a way devoid of historical context, our minds will form their own historical context around the discipline; our minds will begin to view the order of equations in the textbook as their historical order of discovery; and our textbooks of cold hard facts will give us a discipline of cold hard facts, missing its human

46

Torkil Heiede. Why Teach History of Mathematics? in The Mathematical Gazette, Vol. 76, No. 475 (Mar., 1992): 151.

Mahan 21 element. We will fail to realize, in the end that, Mathematics as-an-end-product as presented in textbooks can be very different from mathematics-in-its-making. 47

47

Iris Gulikers and Klaske Blom. A Historical Angle, A Survey of Recent Literature on the Use and Value of History in Geometrical Education in Educational Studies in Mathematics, Vol. 47, No. 2 (2001):228.

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