Plato's Ghost is the first book to examine the development of mathematics from 1880 to 1920 as a modernist transformation similar to those in art, literature, and music. Jeremy Gray traces the growth of mathematical modernism from its roots in problem solving and theory to its interactions with physics, philosophy, theology, psychology, and ideas about real and artificial languages. He shows how mathematics was popularized, and explains how mathematical modernism not only gave expression to the work of mathematicians and the professional image they sought to create for themselves, but how modernism also introduced deeper and ultimately unanswerable questions. Plato's Ghost evokes Yeats's lament that any claim to worldly perfection inevitably is proven wrong by the philosopher's ghost; Gray demonstrates how modernist mathematicians believed they had advanced further than anyone before them, only to make more profound mistakes. He tells for the first time the story of these ambitious and brilliant mathematicians, including Richard Dedekind, Henri Lebesgue, Henri Poincaré, and many others. He describes the lively debates surrounding novel objects, definitions, and proofs in mathematics arising from the use of naïve set theory and the revived axiomatic method—debates that spilled over into contemporary arguments in philosophy and the sciences and drove an upsurge of popular writing on mathematics. And he looks at mathematics after World War I, including the foundational crisis and mathematical Platonism. Plato's Ghost is essential reading for mathematicians and historians, and will appeal to anyone interested in the development of modern mathematics.
"Plato's Ghost examines the Spiritualist movement as the legacy of European esoteric speculation, particularly Platonic ideals, transformed on a new continent."--Jacket cover.
Plato's Ghost and Other Homilies
They zoom in on the Scriptures and uncover vividly their deep significance for contemporary Christians. I wish this book the widest possible circulation.
... Small Wonder , is meant as a kind of password or entry code to the diverse pathways pursued in its pages . In many ways , the pass- word may be startling . Our age is not known as an age of wonder or wonder- ment , but rather as an age ...
As these debates are considered in this book, the author uses texts such as Antigone and Plato's Republic and pairs them with the most important jurisprudence texts of the 20th century to explore different approaches to the contemporary ...
... Plato's thinking or, one might say, Plato's own Platonism. These Platonisms may be different on other grounds, for ... ghost or, in the present view, Pythagoras's spirit, and hence inspiration, in modern mathematics, or in twentieth-century ...
Andrew Lawlesss comprehensive review of the Western philosophical tradition, including the ideas of most major philosophers is enjoyable and easy to read. This is truly a first rate text.
An engaging and insightful text, this book will be of great interest to graduate and postgraduate students, researchers, academics, and professionals in the fields of educational leadership, educational research, and psychoanalysis.
This illustrated collection of forty of his best-loved works, on Love, Politics, Old Age, Myth and Legend includes people, places and events that were important to him.
In this book, which has its origin in a series of radio broadcasts, Paul Davies interviews eight physicists involved in debating and testing quantum theory, with radically different views of its significance.