Nominalism and Constructivism in Seventeenth-Century Mathematical Philosophy

Download or read book Nominalism and Constructivism in Seventeenth-Century Mathematical Philosophy written by David Sepkoski and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-05-24 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.