Math 291: Philosophy of Mathematics
A special topics seminar course. The seminar will focus on the foundations and philosophy of mathematics: what is math, where does it come from, and what is its purpose?
Important Documents
Class Texts
Kline (pdf of the introduction and first two chapters)
Additional Resources
Past seminar articles: Barker, Davis and Hersh, Hersh (dialogue), Hersh, Kline, Moreland, Nickel, Russell, Wigner
Hotel Infinity (alternate rendition that includes the reals and rationals)
Logical Positivism: Logical positivism proposes that the meaning of statements used in science be understood in terms of experimental conditions or observations that verify their truth. This positivist doctrine is known as verificationism. (SEP on Behaviorism) (SEP on Behaviorism) The article on the Vienna Circle gives more background and makes a connection with the philosophy of mathematics.
idiosyncrasy: a peculiarity of constitution or temperament : an individualizing characteristic or quality (M-W.com)
Henry Miller: (referred to on p25 of Logicomix) was an author. While most known for his erotic writings, he wrote at least one travel work on Greece.
Platonism: Here is an article on Platonism in Metaphysics which talks a lot about the status of numbers and other mathematical "objects." http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/platonism/
Russell's definition of number: http://people.umass.edu/klement/imp/imp.html
Russell's essay explaining why he is a rationalist: http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/russell7.htm
Misc writings by Russell: http://users.drew.edu/~jlenz/brtexts.html