Séminaire PhilMath

In the philosophy of science, discussions of the role of goals and values, or of the supposed value-freeness of science, have a long history.  In the  philosophy of mathematics, this topic has started to come up as well, but so far mostly in terms of specific examples.  Thus one can find attention to the values of truth, objectivity, consistency, completeness, provability, and calculability in the traditional literature, more recently also to mathematical depth, purity of method/mathematical hygiene, increasing understanding, intuitive accessibility, and intellectual economy, among others.  These are all epistemic and/or pragmatic goals and values relevant for mathematics.  Occasionally aesthetic ones are brought up as well, such as elegance and beauty.  And if one considers mathematical practice more broadly, one can consider ethical/social goals and values too, e.g., epistemic justice in the attribution of results to authors and intellectual traditions, including beyond Western mathematics and science.  But no general discussion of such goals and values, in all their variety, has been attempted up to now, as far as I am aware.  In this talk, I will attempt to start such a discussion, by way of providing a preliminary orientation.  This will involve embedding the specific cases one can find in the philosophical literature on mathematics into a more encompassing framework derived from parallel discussions in the philosophical literature on science.