Controversy: Axiomatisches Missverstandnis

E Roy Weintraub

Economic Journal, 1998, vol. 108, issue 451, 1837-47

Abstract: From the axiomatic point of view, mathematics appears thus as a storehouse of abstract forms--the mathematical structures; and so it happens without our knowing how that certain aspects of empirical reality fit themselves into these forms, as if through a kind of preadaptation (Bourbaki, 1950). So you believe that the application of mathematics to the physical world is a miracle? If so, then the author invites you to admire another miracle; he can travel around the world with his American Express card. You say of the second, 'That's just a network. If you step out of it by so much as an inch, your card will be valueless.' Quite so. That is what The author is saying about science, nothing more and nothing less (Latour, 1988).

Date: 1998
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