The legendary Renaissance math duel that ushered in the modern age of algebra The Secret Formula tells the story of two Renaissance mathematicians whose jealousies, intrigues, and contentious debates led to the discovery of a formula for the solution of the cubic equation. Niccolo Tartaglia was a talented and ambitious teacher who possessed a secret formula-the key to unlocking a seemingly unsolvable, two-thousand-year-old mathematical problem. He wrote it down in the form of a poem to prevent other mathematicians from stealing it. Gerolamo Cardano was a physician, gifted scholar, and notorious gambler who would not hesitate to use flattery and even trickery to learn Tartaglia's secret. Set against the backdrop of sixteenth-century Italy, The Secret Formula provides new and compelling insights into the peculiarities of Renaissance mathematics while bringing a turbulent and culturally vibrant age to life. It was an era when mathematicians challenged each other in intellectual duels held outdoors before enthusiastic crowds. Success not only enhanced the winner's reputation, but could result in prize money and professional acclaim. After hearing of Tartaglia's spectacular victory in one such contest in Venice, Cardano invited him to Milan, determined to obtain his secret by whatever means necessary. Cardano's intrigues paid off. In 1545, he was the first to publish a general solution of the cubic equation. Tartaglia, eager to take his revenge by establishing his superiority as the most brilliant mathematician of the age, challenged Cardano to the ultimate mathematical duel. A lively and compelling account of genius, betrayal, and all-too-human failings, The Secret Formula reveals the epic rivalry behind one of the fundamental ideas of modern algebra.

Paraconsistent logic makes it possible to study inconsistent theories in a coherent way. From its modern start in the mid-20th century, paraconsistency was intended for use in mathematics, providing a rigorous framework for describing abstract objects and structures where some contradictions are allowed, without collapse into incoherence. Over the past decades, this initiative has evolved into an area of non-classical mathematics known as inconsistent or paraconsistent mathematics. This Element provides a selective introductory survey of this research program, distinguishing between `moderate' and `radical' approaches. The emphasis is on philosophical issues and future challenges.

A sophisticated, original introduction to the philosophy of mathematics from one of its leading thinkers Mathematics is a model of precision and objectivity, but it appears distinct from the empirical sciences because it seems to deliver nonexperiential knowledge of a nonphysical reality of numbers, sets, and functions. How can these two aspects of mathematics be reconciled? This concise book provides a systematic, accessible introduction to the field that is trying to answer that question: the philosophy of mathematics. Oystein Linnebo, one of the world's leading scholars on the subject, introduces all of the classical approaches to the field as well as more specialized issues, including mathematical intuition, potential infinity, and the search for new mathematical axioms. Sophisticated but clear and approachable, this is an essential book for all students and teachers of philosophy and of mathematics.

This is the first book-length analysis of the techniques and procedures of ancient mathematical commentaries. It focuses on examples in Chinese, Sanskrit, Akkadian and Sumerian, and Ancient Greek, presenting the general issues by constant detailed reference to these commentaries, of which substantial extracts are included in the original languages and in translation, sometimes for the first time. This makes the issues accessible to readers without specialized training in mathematics or in the languages involved. The result is a much richer understanding than was hitherto possible of the crucial role of commentaries in the history of mathematics in four different linguistic areas, of the nature of mathematical commentaries in general, of the contribution that the study of mathematical commentaries can make to the history of science and to the study of commentaries in general, and of the ways in which mathematical commentaries are like and unlike other kinds of commentaries.

Contents:
Abbreviations Introduction Acknowledgements Chronology Part I. Early Foundational Work 1. Classes 2. Relations 3. Functions Part II. The Zig-Zag Theory 4. Outlines of Symbolic Logic 5. On Functions, Classes and Relations 6. On Functions 7. Fundamental Notions 8. On the Functionality of Denoting Complexes 9. On the Nature of Functions 10. On Classes and Relations Part III. The Theory of Denoting 11. On the Meaning and Denotation of Phrases 12. Dependent Variables and Denotation 13. Points about Denoting 14. On Meaning and Denotation 15. On Fundamentals 16. On Denoting Part IV. Philosophy of Logic and Mathematics 17. Meinong's Theory of Complexes and Assumptions 18. The Axiom of Infinity 19. Non-Euclidean Geometry 20. The Existential Import of Propositions 21. The Nature of Truth 22. Necessity and Possibility 23. On the Relation of Mathematics to Symbolic Logic Part V. Philosophical Reviews 24. Recent Work on the Philosophy of Leibniz 25. Review of Couturat 26. Review of Geissler 27. Principia Ethica 28. The Meaning of Good 29. Review of Delaporte 30. Review of Hinton 31. Review of Petronievics 32. Science and Hypothesis 33. Review of Poincare 34. Review of Meinong and Others Appendices I Frege on the Contradiction II Comments on Definitions of Philosophical Terms III Sur la relation des mathematiques a la logistique Missing and Unprinted Papers Contents Textual Notes Bibliographical Index General Index

This volume shows Russell in transition from a neo-Kantian and neo-Hegelian philosopher to an analytic philosopher of the first rank. During this period his research centred on writing The Principles of Mathematics where he drew together previously unpublished drafts. These shed light on Russell's paradox. This material will alter previous accounts of how he discovered his paradox and the related paradox of the largest cardinal. The volume also includes a previously unpublished draft of an early attempt to solve his paradox, as well as the earliest known version of his generalised relation arithmetic. It contains three articles which have never previously been published in English.

In many ways set theory lies at the heart of modern mathematics, and it does powerful work both philosophical and mathematical - as a foundation for the subject. However, certain philosophical problems raise serious doubts about our acceptance of the axioms of set theory. In a detailed and original reassessment of these axioms, Sharon Berry uses a potentialist (as opposed to actualist) approach to develop a unified determinate conception of set-theoretic truth that vindicates many of our intuitive expectations regarding set theory. Berry further defends her approach against a number of possible objections, and she shows how a notion of logical possibility that is useful in formulating Potentialist set theory connects in important ways with philosophy of language, metametaphysics and philosophy of science. Her book will appeal to readers with interests in the philosophy of set theory, modal logic, and the role of mathematics in the sciences.

This Element looks at the problem of inter-translation between mathematical realism and anti-realism and argues that so far as realism is inter-translatable with anti-realism, there is a burden on the realist to show how her posited reality differs from that of the anti-realist. It also argues that an effective defence of just such a difference needs a commitment to the independence of mathematical reality, which in turn involves a commitment to the ontological access problem - the problem of how knowable mathematical truths are identifiable with a reality independent of us as knowers. Specifically, if the only access problem acknowledged is the epistemological problem - i.e. the problem of how we come to know mathematical truths - then nothing is gained by the realist notion of an independent reality and in effect, nothing distinguishes realism from anti-realism in mathematics.

Published in 1903, this book was the first comprehensive treatise on the logical foundations of mathematics written in English. It sets forth, as far as possible without mathematical and logical symbolism, the grounds in favour of the view that mathematics and logic are identical. It proposes simply that what is commonly called mathematics are merely later deductions from logical premises. It provided the thesis for which Principia Mathematica provided the detailed proof, and introduced the work of Frege to a wider audience. In addition to the new introduction by John Slater, this edition contains Russell's introduction to the 1937 edition in which he defends his position against his formalist and intuitionist critics.

Kant's Mathematical World aims to transform our understanding of Kant's philosophy of mathematics and his account of the mathematical character of the world. Daniel Sutherland reconstructs Kant's project of explaining both mathematical cognition and our cognition of the world in terms of our most basic cognitive capacities. He situates Kant in a long mathematical tradition with roots in Euclid's Elements, and thereby recovers the very different way of thinking about mathematics which existed prior to its 'arithmetization' in the nineteenth century. He shows that Kant thought of mathematics as a science of magnitudes and their measurement, and all objects of experience as extensive magnitudes whose real properties have intensive magnitudes, thus tying mathematics directly to the world. His book will appeal to anyone interested in Kant's critical philosophy -- either his account of the world of experience, or his philosophy of mathematics, or how the two inform each other.

Building on the seminal work of Kit Fine in the 1980s, Leon Horsten here develops a new theory of arbitrary entities. He connects this theory to issues and debates in metaphysics, logic, and contemporary philosophy of mathematics, investigating the relation between specific and arbitrary objects and between specific and arbitrary systems of objects. His book shows how this innovative theory is highly applicable to problems in the philosophy of arithmetic, and explores in particular how arbitrary objects can engage with the nineteenth-century concept of variable mathematical quantities, how they are relevant for debates around mathematical structuralism, and how they can help our understanding of the concept of random variables in statistics. This fully worked through theory will open up new avenues within philosophy of mathematics, bringing in the work of other philosophers such as Saul Kripke, and providing new insights into the development of the foundations of mathematics from the eighteenth century to the present day.

Logical paradoxes - like the Liar, Russell's, and the Sorites - are notorious. But in Paradoxes and Inconsistent Mathematics, it is argued that they are only the noisiest of many. Contradictions arise in the everyday, from the smallest points to the widest boundaries. In this book, Zach Weber uses "dialetheic paraconsistency" - a formal framework where some contradictions can be true without absurdity - as the basis for developing this idea rigorously, from mathematical foundations up. In doing so, Weber directly addresses a longstanding open question: how much standard mathematics can paraconsistency capture? The guiding focus is on a more basic question, of why there are paradoxes. Details underscore a simple philosophical claim: that paradoxes are found in the ordinary, and that is what makes them so extraordinary.

One of the only volumes that brings the humanities, social sciences and even the natural sciences under one remit to look at how they can be researched in an integrated and useful way, with policy and real world implications in terms of how we relate in and to the world. Interdisciplinarity and Transdisciplinarity have been around for a long time, but as as we move through a digital age they are becoming more and more important and interesting to the scholarly community and beyond. There is nothing on the market that pulls all of these subjects across disciplines together and works out a framework to construct the analysis in a way that asks and answers useful questions.

When a doctor tells you there's a one percent chance that an operation will result in your death, or a scientist claims that his theory is probably true, what exactly does that mean? Understanding probability is clearly very important, if we are to make good theoretical and practical choices. In this engaging and highly accessible introduction to the philosophy of probability, Darrell Rowbottom takes the reader on a journey through all the major interpretations of probability, with reference to real-world situations. In lucid prose, he explores the many fallacies of probabilistic reasoning, such as the 'gambler's fallacy' and the 'inverse fallacy', and shows how we can avoid falling into these traps by using the interpretations presented. He also illustrates the relevance of the interpretation of probability across disciplinary boundaries, by examining which interpretations of probability are appropriate in diverse areas such as quantum mechanics, game theory, and genetics. Using entertaining dialogues to draw out the key issues at stake, this unique book will appeal to students and scholars across philosophy, the social sciences, and the natural sciences.

Philosophical considerations, which are often ignored or treated casually, are given careful consideration in this introduction. Thomas Forster places the notion of inductively defined sets (recursive datatypes) at the center of his exposition resulting in an original analysis of well established topics. The presentation illustrates difficult points and includes many exercises. Little previous knowledge of logic is required and only a knowledge of standard undergraduate mathematics is assumed.

The late 1960s saw the emergence of new philosophical interest in Kant's philosophy of mathematics, and since then this interest has developed into a major and dynamic field of study. In this state-of-the-art survey of contemporary scholarship on Kant's mathematical thinking, Carl Posy and Ofra Rechter gather leading authors who approach it from multiple perspectives, engaging with topics including geometry, arithmetic, logic, and metaphysics. Their essays offer fine-grained analysis of Kant's philosophy of mathematics in the context of his Critical philosophy, and also show sensitivity to its historical background. The volume will be important for readers seeking a comprehensive picture of the current scholarship about the development of Kant's philosophy of mathematics, its place in his overall philosophy, and the Kantian themes that influenced mathematics and its philosophy after Kant.

Sets are central to mathematics and its foundations, but what are they? In this book Luca Incurvati provides a detailed examination of all the major conceptions of set and discusses their virtues and shortcomings, as well as introducing the fundamentals of the alternative set theories with which these conceptions are associated. He shows that the conceptual landscape includes not only the naive and iterative conceptions but also the limitation of size conception, the definite conception, the stratified conception and the graph conception. In addition, he presents a novel, minimalist account of the iterative conception which does not require the existence of a relation of metaphysical dependence between a set and its members. His book will be of interest to researchers and advanced students in logic and the philosophy of mathematics.

What are the meanings of number expressions, and what can they tell us about questions of central importance to the philosophy of mathematics, specifically 'Do numbers exist?' This Element attempts to shed light on this question by outlining a recent debate between substantivalists and adjectivalists regarding the semantic function of number words in numerical statements. After highlighting their motivations and challenges, I develop a comprehensive polymorphic semantics for number expressions. I argue that accounting for the numerous meanings and how they are related leads to a strengthened argument for realism, one which renders familiar forms of nominalism highly implausible.

Numbers and other mathematical objects are exceptional in having no locations in space or time and no causes or effects in the physical world. This makes it difficult to account for the possibility of mathematical knowledge, leading many philosophers to embrace nominalism, the doctrine that there are no abstract entitles, and to embark on ambitious projects for interpreting mathematics so as to preserve the subject while eliminating its objects. A Subject With No Object cuts through a host of technicalities that have obscured previous discussions of these projects, and presents clear, concise accounts, with minimal prerequisites, of a dozen strategies for nominalistic interpretation of mathematics, thus equipping the reader to evaluate each and to compare different ones. The authors also offer critical discussion, rare in the literature, of the aims and claims of nominalistic interpretation, suggesting that it is significant in a very different way from that usually assumed.

What was the basis for the adoption of mathematics as the primary mode of discourse for describing natural events by a large segment of the philosophical community in the seventeenth century?

In answering this question, this book demonstrates that a significant group of philosophers shared the belief that there is no necessary correspondence between external reality and objects of human understanding, which they held to include the objects of mathematical and linguistic discourse. The result is a scholarly reliable, but accessible, account of the role of mathematics in the works of (amongst others) Galileo, Kepler, Descartes, Newton, Leibniz, and Berkeley.

This impressive volume will benefit scholars interested in the history of philosophy, mathematical philosophy and the history of mathematics.

Are there objects that are "thin" in the sense that not very much is required for their existence? Frege famously thought so. He claimed that the equinumerosity of the knives and the forks suffices for there to be objects such as the number of knives and the number of forks, and for these objects to be identical. The idea of thin objects holds great philosophical promise but has proved hard to explicate. Oystein Linnebo aims to do so by drawing on some Fregean ideas. First, to be an object is to be a possible referent of a singular term. Second, singular reference can be achieved by providing a criterion of identity for the would-be referent. The second idea enables a form of easy reference and thus, via the first idea, also a form of easy being. Paradox is avoided by imposing a predicativity restriction on the criteria of identity. But the abstraction based on a criterion of identity may result in an expanded domain. By iterating such expansions, a powerful account of dynamic abstraction is developed. The result is a distinctive approach to ontology. Abstract objects such as numbers and sets are demystified and allowed to exist alongside more familiar physical objects. And Linnebo also offers a novel approach to set theory which takes seriously the idea that sets are "formed" successively.

L. E. J. Brouwer, the founder of mathematical intuitionism, believed that mathematics and its objects must be humanly graspable. He initiated a program rebuilding modern mathematics according to that principle. This book introduces the reader to the mathematical core of intuitionism - from elementary number theory through to Brouwer's uniform continuity theorem - and to the two central topics of 'formalized intuitionism': formal intuitionistic logic, and formal systems for intuitionistic analysis. Building on that, the book proposes a systematic, philosophical foundation for intuitionism that weaves together doctrines about human grasp, mathematical objects and mathematical truth.

This book investigates the relationships between modern mathematics and science (in particular, quantum mechanics) and the mode of theorizing that Arkady Plotnitsky defines as "nonclassical" and identifies in the work of Bohr, Heisenberg, Lacan, and Derrida. Plotinsky argues that their scientific and philosophical works radically redefined the nature and scope of our knowledge. Building upon their ideas, the book finds a new, nonclassical character in the "dream of great interconnections" Bohr described, thereby engaging with recent debates about the "two cultures" (the humanities and the sciences).
Plotnitsky highlights those points at which the known gives way to the unknown (and unknowable). These points are significant, he argues, because they push the boundaries of thought and challenge the boundaries of disciplinarity. One of the book's most interesting observations is that key figures in science, in order to push toward a framing of the unknown, actually retreated into a conservative disciplinarity. Plotnitsky's informed, interdisciplinary approach is more productive than the disparaging attacks on postmodernism or scientism that have hitherto characterized this discourse.
Arkady Plotnitsky is Professor of English and Director, Theory and Cultural Studies Program, Purdue University. Trained in both mathematics and literary theory, he is author of several books, including "In the Shadow of Hegel: Complementarity, History and the Unconscious" and "Reconfigurations: Critical Theory and General Economy."

A comprehensive collection of historical readings in the philosophy of mathematics and a selection of influential contemporary work, this much-needed introduction reveals the rich history of the subject. An Historical Introduction to the Philosophy of Mathematics: A Reader brings together an impressive collection of primary sources from ancient and modern philosophy. Arranged chronologically and featuring introductory overviews explaining technical terms, this accessible reader is easy-to-follow and unrivaled in its historical scope. With selections from key thinkers such as Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Hume and Kant, it connects the major ideas of the ancients with contemporary thinkers. A selection of recent texts from philosophers including Quine, Putnam, Field and Maddy offering insights into the current state of the discipline clearly illustrates the development of the subject. Presenting historical background essential to understanding contemporary trends and a survey of recent work, An Historical Introduction to the Philosophy of Mathematics: A Reader is required reading for undergraduates and graduate students studying the philosophy of mathematics and an invaluable source book for working researchers.

In this book wedescribe the basic elements of present computational technologies that use the algorithmic languages C/C++. The emphasis is on GNU compilers and libraries, FOSS for the solution of computational mathematics problems and visualization of the obtained data. At the beginning, a brief introduction to C is given with emphasis on its easy use in scientific and engineering computations.We describe the basic elements of the language, such as variables, data types, executable statements, functions, arrays, pointers, dynamic memory and file management. After that, we present some observations on the C++ programming language.We discuss the issues of program compiling, linking, and debugging. A quick guide to Eclipse is also presented in the book. The main features for editing, compiling, debugging and application assembling are considered.As examples, wesolve the standard problems of computational mathematics: operations with vectors and matrices, linear algebra problems, solution of nonlinear equations, numerical differentiation and integration, interpolation, initial value problems for ODEs and so on. Finally, basic features ofcomputational technologies are illustrated with model problems. All programs are implemented in C/C++ with using the GSL library. Gnuplot is employed to visualize the results of computations.