Mathematics and Morality on the Cusp of Modernity

Peter Dear

Revue d'histoire des mathématiques (2001)

  • Volume: 7, Issue: 2, page 279-296
  • ISSN: 1262-022X

Abstract

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This note suggests that a fruitful way of investigating the history of mathematics lies in consideration of its pedagogical purposes. As a general illustration of the directions that such an approach might take, the paper discusses early-modern arguments for the practical utility of mathematics and its capacity to inculcate good habits of thought, as well as the appearance of new uses for mathematical training in the later eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries that served the purpose of the modernizing state, with its characteristic emphasis on impersonal criteria of evaluation and assessment of individuals. The paper encourages an understanding of mathematical pedagogy that refuses to treat it as unproblematic, and that seeks answers in social and cultural history.

How to cite

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Dear, Peter. "Mathematics and Morality on the Cusp of Modernity." Revue d'histoire des mathématiques 7.2 (2001): 279-296. <http://eudml.org/doc/252104>.

@article{Dear2001,
abstract = {This note suggests that a fruitful way of investigating the history of mathematics lies in consideration of its pedagogical purposes. As a general illustration of the directions that such an approach might take, the paper discusses early-modern arguments for the practical utility of mathematics and its capacity to inculcate good habits of thought, as well as the appearance of new uses for mathematical training in the later eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries that served the purpose of the modernizing state, with its characteristic emphasis on impersonal criteria of evaluation and assessment of individuals. The paper encourages an understanding of mathematical pedagogy that refuses to treat it as unproblematic, and that seeks answers in social and cultural history.},
author = {Dear, Peter},
journal = {Revue d'histoire des mathématiques},
keywords = {mathematics; education; history; Europe},
language = {eng},
number = {2},
pages = {279-296},
publisher = {Société mathématique de France},
title = {Mathematics and Morality on the Cusp of Modernity},
url = {http://eudml.org/doc/252104},
volume = {7},
year = {2001},
}

TY - JOUR
AU - Dear, Peter
TI - Mathematics and Morality on the Cusp of Modernity
JO - Revue d'histoire des mathématiques
PY - 2001
PB - Société mathématique de France
VL - 7
IS - 2
SP - 279
EP - 296
AB - This note suggests that a fruitful way of investigating the history of mathematics lies in consideration of its pedagogical purposes. As a general illustration of the directions that such an approach might take, the paper discusses early-modern arguments for the practical utility of mathematics and its capacity to inculcate good habits of thought, as well as the appearance of new uses for mathematical training in the later eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries that served the purpose of the modernizing state, with its characteristic emphasis on impersonal criteria of evaluation and assessment of individuals. The paper encourages an understanding of mathematical pedagogy that refuses to treat it as unproblematic, and that seeks answers in social and cultural history.
LA - eng
KW - mathematics; education; history; Europe
UR - http://eudml.org/doc/252104
ER -

References

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