Agency in Mathematical Practice

Yacin Hamami ()
Additional contact information
Yacin Hamami: University of Liège, Postdoctoral Researcher FNRS, Philosophy Department

A chapter in Handbook of the History and Philosophy of Mathematical Practice, 2024, pp 2905-2923 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract A characteristic feature of the philosophy of mathematical practice is to attend to what people do when they do mathematics. But what does it mean to do mathematics? This question raises several issues regarding the nature of action, activity, and agency in mathematical practice. The present chapter reviews contributions in the field that have attempted to theorize about these notions. It begins with some motivations for taking agents seriously in the philosophical study of mathematical practice. The core of the chapter discusses, in turn, what it means to carry out mathematical activities, do things with mathematical artifacts, engage with mathematical proofs, and perform mathematical actions prescribed by mathematical texts. Taken together, the various lines of work reported here provide an initial, but already sophisticated, picture of what it means to do mathematics. The chapter ends with some suggestions for future research on agency in mathematical practice.

Keywords: Philosophy of mathematical practice; Agency in mathematical practice; Actions in mathematical practice; Mathematical agents (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-3-031-40846-5_48

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/9783031408465

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-40846-5_48

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Springer Books from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().