Indirect mathematization in the physical sciences

John Drummond

pp. 71-92

in: Lee Hardy, Lester Embree (eds), Phenomenology of natural science, Berlin, Springer, 1992

Abstract

This paper reflects upon and extends Husserl's analysis of the indirect mathematization of nature by distinguishing three stages thereof: (1) Galileo's extension of classical Euclidean geometry to the study of matter in motion; (2) the development (dependent upon the analytic geometry and the calculus) of the ideal of a fully formal, axiomatic science of nature; and (3) the challenges posed to this view of science by relativity theory, quantum mechanics. The differing mathematical conceptions involved in these challenges also occasion a revised view of how the world presents itself in and to the scientific experience.

Cited authors

Husserl Edmund