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Does anyone know, or knows about a paper, that aproaches the current relationship between Kant and mathematics? In the Critique of pure reason, Kant states that math is a science, which means that a simple formula such as 7+5=12 is not an analitical judgement (7+5 doesn't contain 12 in itself), but a synthetic one (so the formula 7+5=12 is in fact saying something and it isn't a mere tautology), and he arguments this by saying that our sensibility is structured in such a way that our intuituions of time and space can give us the grounds to build arithmetic and geometry without the need of any particular data given by our senses. my question is: is math still considered a sort of knowledge which consists of synthetic judgments a priori?

Thank you.

Mónica R.

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Mónica, this is the wrong forum for your question; see the FAQ. In case you didn't see my comment to your previous question, I'll recommend again: philosophy.stackexchange.com – Ed Dean Dec 30 2011 at 5:58
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@Mónica: your question is a question about philosophy, not about mathematics. Asking for papers written by mathematicians about mathematics is fine here. – Qiaochu Yuan Dec 30 2011 at 6:15
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No, mathematicians do not work on questions such as these. This is the domain of philosophy. – James Cranch Dec 30 2011 at 8:32
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-1. I have always been astonished by the lack of historical perspective in which philosophers sometimes fall: they often try to mix concepts and viewpoints that manifestly cannot be mixed for obvious historical limitations. Does it make any sense to compare pre-socratic 'physics' to the current standard model? Does it make any sense to directly compare Kant's view on "analytic truths" to -say- current mathematical logic? No, it doesn't, because the epistemological background is totally different. – Qfwfq Dec 30 2011 at 10:28
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@Monica: This is indeed a wrong forum for your question. Not because it is not related to math but because there is nobody to answer it. Nevertheless the statement(s) that mathematicians are not interested in Kant's philosophy is wrong. Last Fall, there was a series of seminars at the Math department of Stanford University devoted to exactly that topic. One of the key people there was Gregory Mints, as far as I remember (I was in Berkeley at that time and wanted to attend, but I did not have time, unfortunately). I suggest you find it on the Stanford Web page and contact the people there. – Mark Sapir Dec 30 2011 at 15:01
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closed as off topic by Qiaochu Yuan, GH, Andy Putman, Will Jagy, Felipe Voloch Dec 30 2011 at 6:18

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