The Double Twist: From Ethnography to Morphodynamics;The Artist and the Mathematician: The Story of Nicolas Bourbaki, the Genius Mathematician Who Never Existed

摘要

Math and myth intertwine in a subtle manner in the thought of Levi-Strauss. Mathematical tropes carry a heavy burden in his texts. They are more than metaphors. Structures of mathematics serve to express some of his most fun_damental ideas about human societies. Mathematics may have played a bigger part in the genesis of structuralism than has generally been realized. I review two books that shed light on this interaction. The volume edited by Pierre Maranda is a technical and philosophical contribution to the more sophisticated aspects of Levi-Strauss's intellectual legacy, whereas Amir D. Aczel's popular book on Bourbaki has been included because of the large place given to Levi-Strauss in it.