Re: [xmca] In what sense(s) is mathematics a social construction.?

[Ng Foo Keong <lefouque@gmail.com>]

Can Fichte account for the many different mathematical theories
that have emerged (re. my three examples) in human history?

What "-ism" do you call this?

F.K.



2009/5/1 Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net>:
> No FK I am not a Platonist.
>
> We cannot think of or describe nature other than through labour processes of
> some kind. But this does not imply that there are "nature's labour
> processes" out there somewhere in a Kantian Jenseits, which we mirror. It
> simply means that we discover objective limits to our subjective will and
> this takes the form of activity which is both subjective and objective. This
> goes back to Fichte strangely enough.
>
> Nominalism and Platonism are not the only choices.
>
> Andy
>
> Ng Foo Keong wrote:
>>
>> so are you saying that the different forms / brands of maths
>> (small 'm') of different traditions/civilisations are just
>> human maps of _The_ Mathematics (big 'm')?
>>
>> "The maps are not the territory", right?
>>
>> is there a magic Book, Somewhere Up There, where we can download
>> all the maths that humans need, and maybe download instant
>> understanding of maths, so children (and adults) are spared
>> the pain of trying to work out their understanding of maths?
>>
>> F.K.
>>
>>
>> 2009/5/1 Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net>:
>>>
>>> Eric,
>>> the cosmos existed without humans and will exist after us. But we
>>> invented
>>> physics, and fairly recently at that. Physics (like mathes) is a human
>>> practice, practiced in a certain community of practice (institutions,
>>> procedures), using a certain range of artefacts (symbols, words,
>>> apparatus).
>>>
>>> That the material from which artefacts are made and the object of hte
>>> enquiry exists independently of human activity does not prove that the
>>> activity itself exists without humans.
>>>
>>> *All* artefacts and forms of activity rest upon a natural world which
>>> exists
>>> independently of us. Our practice is constrained by nature, always, and
>>> is
>>> never in that sense capricious. I think I can fly ... but I still come
>>> crashing to the ground. Same with maths.
>>>
>>> Andy
>>
>
> --
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Andy Blunden http://home.mira.net/~andy/
> Hegel's Logic with a Foreword by Andy Blunden:
> From Erythrós Press and Media <http://www.erythrospress.com/>.
>
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