A Natural History of Mathematics

George Peacock and the Making of English Algebra

Dados Bibliográficos

ID3210139
AutoresKevin Lambert (California State University, Fullerton, autor correspondente)
Ano2013
Volume104
Fascículo2
Páginas278-302
Data de publicação2013-06-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessNão
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoIsis (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0021-1753 • E-ISSN: 1545-6994
EditoraUniversity of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1086/670948
PMID23961689
OpenAlexW2052588493
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas4
Referências citadas29

In a series of papers read to the Cambridge Philosophical Society through the 1820s, the Cambridge mathematician George Peacock laid the foundation for a natural history of arithmetic that would tell a story of human progress from counting to modern arithmetic. The trajectory of that history, Peacock argued, established algebraic analysis as a form of universal reasoning that used empirically warranted operations of mind to think with symbols on paper. The science of counting would suggest arithmetic, arithmetic would suggest arithmetical algebra, and, finally, arithmetical algebra would suggest symbolic algebra. This philosophy of suggestion provided the foundation for Peacock's "principle of equivalent forms," which justified the practice of nineteenth-century English symbolic algebra. Peacock's philosophy of suggestion owed a considerable debt to the early Cambridge Philosophical Society culture of natural history. The aim of this essay is to show how that culture of natural history was constitutively significant to the practice of nineteenth-century English algebra

Algebra over a field · Arithmetic · Arithmetic function · Art history · Discrete mathematics · George (robot · History of mathematics · Mathematics education · Natural (archaeology · Natural number · Pure mathematics · Symbolic computation · Classics · Historical and Literary Studies · Historical Philosophy and Science · History · History and Theory of Mathematics · Mathematics