Reading Mathematics in Early Modern Europe: Studies in the Production, Collection, and Use of Mathematical Books

摘要

ALONK AMONG THE DISCIPLINES, mathematics is often regarded as the search for absolute truth, as possessing what Bertrand Russell called the cold and austere beauty of a sculpture. The editors of Reading Mathematics in Early Modern Europe seem determined to demolish any such idealistic representation, preferring instead Russell's later assessment (in Mysticism and Logic) of 'the subject in which we never know what we are talking about, nor whether what we are saying is true.' The volume's contributors analyse books of mathematics not as printed sources of incontrovertible pure knowledge, but as valuable handwritten records of continuous debates, revisions, mistakes, and uncertainties. While schoolchildren bequeathed their names, inky thumbprints and personal comments to posterity, more dedicated users might remain anonymous yet engage in longitudinal, well-informed conversations between successive owners.