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Posted:03-12-2011
Language:English
Berkeley's Philosophy of Mathematics

Berkeley's Philosophy of Mathematics

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published on: 09/15/1993

Print ISBN: 9780226398983

Series: Science and Its Conceptual Foundations

By: Douglas M. Jesseph

Available Formats: PDF
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Description
In this first modern, critical assessment of the place of mathematics in Berkeley's philosophy and Berkeley's place in the history of mathematics, Douglas M. Jesseph provides a bold reinterpretation of Berkeley's work. Jesseph challenges the prevailing view that Berkeley's mathematical writings are peripheral to his philosophy and argues that mathematics is in fact central to his thought, developing out of his critique of abstraction. Jesseph's argument situates Berkeley's ideas within the larger historical and intellectual context of the Scientific Revolution.Jesseph begins with Berkeley's radical opposition to the received view of mathematics in the philosophy of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, when mathematics was considered a "science of abstractions." Since this view seriously conflicted with Berkeley's critique of abstract ideas, Jesseph contends that he was forced to come up with a nonabstract philosophy of mathematics. Jesseph examines Berkeley's unique treatments of geometry and arithmetic and his famous critique of the calculus in The Analyst.By putting Berkeley's mathematical writings in the perspective of his larger philosophical project and examining their impact on eighteenth-century British mathematics, Jesseph makes a major contribution to philosophy and to the history and philosophy of science.
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PrefaceWorks Frequently CitedIntroduction1. Abstraction and the Berkeleyan Philosophy of MathematicsAristotelian and Scholastic BackgroundSeventeenth-Century BackgroundBerkeley's Case against Abstract IdeasSources of Berkeley's Antiabstractionism2. Berkeley's New Foundations for GeometryThe Early ViewAbstraction and Geometry in the PrinciplesGeometry in the New Theory of Vision Geometry and Abstraction in the Later Works3. Berkeley's New Foundations for ArithmeticGeometry versus ArithmeticNumbers as Creatures of the MindThe Nonabstract Nature of NumbersBerkeley's Arithmetical FormalismAlgebra as an Extension of ArithmeticThe Primacy of Practice over TheoryBerkeley's Formalism Evaluated4. Berkeley and the Calculus: The BackgroundClassical Geometry and the Proof by ExhaustionInfinitesimal MathematicsThe Method of IndivisiblesLeibniz and the Differential CalculusThe Newtonian Method of Fluxions5. Berkeley and the Calculus: Writings before the Analyst The Calculus in the Philosophical CommentariesThe Essay "Of Infinites"The Principles and Other Works6. Berkeley and the Calculus: The Analyst The Object of the CalculusThe Principles and Demonstrations of the CalculusThe Compensation of Errors ThesisGhosts of Departed Quantities and Other Vain AbstractionsThe Analyst Evaluated7. The Aftermath of the Analyst Berkeley's Disputes with Jurin and WaltonOther Reponses to BerkeleyThe Significance of the Analyst ConclusionsBibliographyIndex

Douglas M. Jesseph (Author)

Douglas M. Jesseph is assistant professor of philosophy at North Carolina State University.
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