Mathematics, Philosophy, and the "Real World"

by J udith V. Grabiner (Biography)

The following materials are provided to enhance your learning experience. Click the links below for free information including a
professor-authored course summary, recommended web links, and a condensed bibliography.
Course Summary - Professor's written description of the course.
Professor Recommended Links
Condensed Bibliography - Prepared by the professor for this course.
Course Summary
How has mathematics changed the way people look at the world?
Surprisingly, throughout the Western tradition, views about human nature; religion; philosophy; truth; space and time; and
works of philosophy, art, politics, and literature have been shaped by ideas and practices frommathematics. The most
influential mathematical shapers, geometry and statistical thinking, are quite different fromone another and reflect the
contrasting ideas of certainty and unpredictability. Euclidean geometry was used by philosophers to argue that truth could be
achieved by human thought and that nonmaterial objects could in some sense be known. Later, the disciplines of probability
and statistics provided a way of understandingwith precisionthose events in the physical and social worlds that seemed to
come about by chance and follow no laws at all.
In these lectures, we will see how all of this happened. We will develop enough of the mathematicskey theorems in Book 1
of Euclid's Elements, enough elementary probability and statistics to understand the shape of the bell curveto appreciate its
impact. But our goal will be more like that of the historian: to understand and experience the development of Western thought
with a focus on how mathematics has helped determine it.
We will begin in the modern world, with a life-and-death example of probability in modern medicine. We will go on to learn
some elementary probability theory and its applications to the study of society. We will see how the constancy of murder and
suicide rates over time helped move the focus of study to social, as opposed to individual, causes of crime; how, ignorant of
causes, people might first conclude that events were due to chance, but change their views when relevant laws are
discovered; and how, if human behavior has social causes, people can still argue for the freedomof the human will. Among the
thinkers whose ideas we will discuss are Blaise Pascal, Pierre-Simon Laplace, Adolphe Quetelet, James Clerk Maxwell, and
Stephen Jay Gould.
Turning fromchance to precision, we will see how the model of certainty exemplified by Euclid's geometry affected views of
truth and proof. Plato thought geometry's certainty arose fromthe eternal, unchanging perfection of its objects and argued for
an unchanging reality as the only object of true knowledge. Aristotle, though, saw geometry's certainty in its method: logical
deductions fromselfevident assumptions. Later philosophers accepted that geometry was certain and true and hoped that by
looking at mathematics we could tell what properties all certain knowledge had to possess. We will address Euclid's model by
examining his original Elements of Geometry, not the watered-down versions taught in modern high schools. And we will see
how these ideas crucially influenced philosophers like Descartes, Spinoza, Kant, and Voltaire, not to mention Thomas
Jefferson's Declaration of Independence.
Even with all this philosophical backup, the self-evident truths of Euclidean geometry gave way, in the 19th century, to
non-Euclidean geometries, which produced an alternative view both of perceptual space and of reality. We will look at this
revolutionary development and some responses to its implications, focusing especially on Hermann von Helmholtz's argument
about the empirical nature of geometrya challenge to Kantianismand on Albert Einstein's use of non-Euclidean geometry
in his general theory of relativity.
Next, we will examine some of these questions cross-culturally, first contrasting the approach to geometry in the West with that
of classical China, and then suggesting some reasons for the differences.
Finally, we will note that all has not been harmonious in the relationship between mathematics and philosophy. We will look at
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some prominent critics who found mathematicians and their allies to have claimed far too much for the power of their way of
thinking, or who found mathematics and mathematical thought cold, unfeeling, and even totalitarian. These "opponents" will
include British economist Thomas Robert Malthus; American poet Walt Whitman; British novelist Charles Dickens; and
Russian novelist, playwright, and satirist Yevgeny Zamyatin. In this context, we will also revisit the nuanced position of Blaise
Pascal.
Throughout the course, we will be interested in the way philosophers, theologians, political figures, artists, and poets
appropriated mathematics for their own agendas. But we will also address the way the nature and practice of mathematics
shaped those same agendas. The applications of probability and statistics in modern society may be the example with the
most obvious contemporary relevance. But, even more important, the course also illustrates the mathematical backbone of the
entire history of Western philosophy. All of Western thought, for good or ill, has been consistently in dialogue with
mathematics. Both the dialogue and the examples should appeal to those who know mathematics and are interested in its
impact on ideas in general as well as those interested in philosophy who want to know more about the central role
mathematics has played throughout its history.
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Professor Recommend Links
http://mathdl.maa.org/mathDL/1/
http://plato.stanford.edu/
http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/Search/historysearch.html
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~chance/
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Condensed Bibliography
These selected titles from the reading list are now available on Amazon.com. Click on a title for more information and/or
to order the title.
An Introduction to Probability and Inductive Logic. Hacking, Ian
Though a textbook, this is written in such a user-friendly fashion that it doesn't seem like one. It begins
with a set of examples that are fun to think about, and explains a lot of very sophisticated concepts
using ordinary language. Philosophically sophisticated but still quite readable. It contains a set of
problems, and solutions (not just answers) are given in the back of this 300-page book.
How to Lie with Statistics. Huff, Darrell
Absolutely the best popular introduction to evaluating statistical arguments ever written. Elementary,
short, immensely readable, and illustrated with amusing cartoons.
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Mathematics in Western Culture. Kline, Morris
A magisterial work, addressing many of the topics in this course in its 472 pages. Though it does not
reflect scholarship since the 1960s, and reserves a good deal of its sympathies for those who share the
modern Western worldview, it orients the reader well and contains many insights.
One, Two, Three Infinity: Facts and Speculations of Science Infinity: Facts and Speculations of
Science. Gamow, George
A nice popular account of a number of topics in mathematics and science, including the proofs that there
are more real numbers than rational ones, but as many whole numbers as there are rational ones; also
briefly introduces non-Euclidean geometry and its relationship to general relativity. Readable and
interesting.
The Thirteen Books of Euclid's Elements, volume I. Heath, Thomas L., ed
This cheap edition of Euclid is the way to acquaint oneself with the real thing, albeit in English and not
informed by more recent scholarship such as that of Wilbur Knorr. Volume I contains both Book I of the
Elements, the Book covered in the course, and Book II, about areas. Volumes II and III contain the rest
of the Elements, with Volume II containing Books III-IX and Volume III containing Books X-XIII.
In some cases the only available book fromAmazon is a newer edition than the one used by the professor. The edition used by
the professor may be available on the used market.
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