Skip to main content
1 of 1
djechlin
  • 301
  • 1
  • 2
  • 7

Two points: one, firstly understanding mathematical processes can be of immense pedagogical value. See e.g. Polya's How to Solve It (and he wrote a more academic book with these themes), or Lakatos' Proofs and Refutations. I found this book New Directions in the Philosophy of Mathematics which had interesting essays as well.

Secondly, remember that broadly the point of philosophy is to make things not philosophy. In extremely simplistic historical terms, once natural philosophy becomes rigorous it becomes science, once philosophy of language became rigorous it became linguistics, and today we're seeing philosophy of mind turn to neuroscience.

So philosophy that elucidates mathematics is simply... mathematics. Most obviously Russell and the development of set theory. Modernly I don't know: I think the interesting stuff is happening at computer science/philosophy and physics/philosophy which trickles into mathematics. I'm posting this largely because I think the question is slightly broken because philosophy doesn't really work to clarify a field where it has already been clarified.

djechlin
  • 301
  • 1
  • 2
  • 7