Mathematics as Practice and Culture: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Mathematics
Date: May 27-29, 2010
Location: Center for Interdisciplinary Research (ZIF), University of Bielefeld, Germany
Organizers
Christian Greiffenhagen (School of Social Sciences, University of Manchester)
Martina Merz (Institute of Sociology, University of Lucerne)
Participants
Alexandre Borovik (University of Manchester, UK)
Daniel Breslau (Virginia Tech, USA)
Karine Chemla (CNRS, France)
Christian Greiffenhagen (University of Manchester, UK)
Ann Johnson (University of South Carolina, US)
Herbert Kalthoff (University of Mainz, Germany)
Benedikt Löwe (University of Amsterdam, Netherlands)
Michael Lynch (Cornell University, USA)
Donald MacKenzie (University of Edinburgh, UK)
Herbert Mehrtens (Technische Universität Braunschweig, Germany)
Martina Merz (University of Lucerne, Switzerland)
Thomas Müller (University of Utrecht, Netherlands)
Claude Rosental (CNRS, France)
Wes Sharrock (University of Manchester, UK)
Programme [PDF]
For Participants (restricted)
Workshop Summary
For a long time, questions about the nature of scientific knowledge were the domain of the philosophy of science. Since the 1970s, such questions have been addressed in novel ways through a variety of historical, sociological and anthropological case studies. These studies have turned the analytic lens to the social, cultural, practical, material, political, etc. constituents of scientific knowledge. As such they have contributed to changing our image of science and had a widespread influence on a variety of disciplines.
Whilst the claims of the new approaches in the sociology and history of science were meant to be comprehensive, and to apply to mathematics just as much as to the (natural) sciences, not all scientific fields have received the same attention. A large number of detailed studies of the culture and practice of experimental sciences (e.g., biology, chemistry, particle physics) contrasts with only few endeavors to similarly address the mathematical or theoretical sciences (such as pure mathematics, formal logic, theoretical physics and the like). Disciplines that do not rely on experiments and complicated machinery but are associated with 'proof', 'deduction', or 'calculation' have not received systematic attention.
Nevertheless, over the past two or three decades there has been a limited but steadily increasing number of highly diverse studies of mathematics as culture and practice that have achieved some distinguished results. Yet, to date there exists no attempt to draw these studies together and to review their respective achievements and the relations between them. This workshop tries to do just that. Such review is important not only to give credit and visibility to the existing body of work but also as a basis from which to develop a research agenda for future work.
Support
The workshop is supported through generous funding by the Center for Interdisciplinary Research (ZIF), University of Bielefeld (Germany) and the Cogito Foundation (Switzerland).