{"product_id":"mathematics-as-sign-brian-rotman-9780804736848","title":"Mathematics as Sign: Writing, Imagining, Counting","description":"\u003cp\u003eTwo features of mathematics stand out: its menagerie of seemingly eternal objects (numbers, spaces, patterns, functions, categories, morphisms, graphs, and so on), and the hieroglyphics of special notations, signs, symbols, and diagrams associated with them. The author challenges the widespread belief in the extra-human origins of these objects and the understanding of mathematics as either a purely mental activity about them or a formal game of manipulating symbols. Instead, he argues that mathematics is a vast and unique man-made imagination machine controlled by writing. \u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eMathematics as Sign\u003c\/i\u003e addresses both aspects--mental and linguistic--of this machine. The opening essay, \"Toward a Semiotics of Mathematics\" (long acknowledged as a seminal contribution to its field), sets out the author's underlying model. According to this model, \"doing\" mathematics constitutes a kind of waking dream or thought experiment in which a proxy of the self is propelled around imagined worlds that are conjured into intersubjective being through signs. \u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eOther essays explore the status of these signs and the nature of mathematical objects, how mathematical ideograms and diagrams differ from each other and from written words, the probable fate of the real number continuum and calculus in the digital era, the manner in which Platonic and Aristotelean metaphysics are enshrined in the contemporary mathematical infinitude of endless counting, and the possibility of creating a new conception of the sequence of whole numbers based on what the author calls non-Euclidean counting. \u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eReprising and going beyond the critique of number in \u003ci\u003eAd Infinitum\u003c\/i\u003e, the essays in this volume offer an accessible insight into Rotman's project, one that has been called \"one of the most original and important recent contributions to the philosophy of mathematics.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Brian Rotman\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 0804736847\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780804736848\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Stanford University Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 08\/01\/2000\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 184\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.50lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 8.54h x 5.51w x 0.50d\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eReview Citation(s): \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eScitech Book News\u003c\/i\u003e 12\/01\/2000 pg. 19","brand":"Brian Rotman","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":43947215585535,"sku":"9780804736848","price":30.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/products\/img_4bff1562-694b-43d5-bf74-1ccf6593b59b.jpg?v=1681517410","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/mathematics-as-sign-brian-rotman-9780804736848","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}