Steps towards a pragmatic protogeometry
pp. 76-88
in: , Whitehead's categoreal scheme and other papers, Berlin, Springer, 1974Abstract
Mathematics is not a subject removed from metaphysical toil, but part and parcel of the system of our knowledge and of the sciences as a whole. It would be a truly extraordinary situation in the cosmos if it were otherwise. If it were, there would be straightaway a bifurcation to be explained. An adequate account of knowledge without a bifurcation is difficult enough, and next to impossible with one. Further, there seem to be no well-grounded reasons why mathematics should be thought to constitute one kind of knowledge and the other sciences another. What precisely is the difference here anyhow? Is it fundamental? And why should there be this difference? Not that there are not distinctions, of course. There always are between or among the sciences, but these should not, it would seem, be regarded as fundamental distinctions of kind. In any case, it is of interest to try to view mathematics as part of an integrated and comprehensive system rather than as someting special or sui generis.