Massimo Mazzotti im Science Studies Colloquium

Er hat folgende Zusammenfassung des Vortrags mit uns geteilt:

In this talk, I refer to an episode of mathematical resistance to reveal the rise of modern mathematics and its cornerstone, mathematical purity, as political phenomena. This resistance manifested itself in Naples, at the margins of the mathematical regime of Enlightenment Europe, and became most visible during the revolutionary crisis. It took the form of a complete reorientation of mathematical practice. Over the unrestricted manipulation and application of algebraic algorithms, Neapolitan mathematicians called for a return to Greek-style geometry and the preeminence of a newly defined “pure mathematics”. What they were arguing for would become crucial features of modern mathematics: its voluntary restriction through a new kind of rigor and discipline, and the complete disconnection of mathematical truth from the empirical world. The Neapolitans, I argue, were reacting to the widespread use of mathematical analysis in social and political arguments: theirs was a reactionary mathematics that aimed to technically refute the revolutionary mathematics of the Jacobins. During the Restoration, the expert groups in the service of the modern administrative state reaffirmed the role of pure mathematics as the foundation of a newly rigorous mathematics, which was now conceived as a neutral tool for modernization. All along, producing mathematical knowledge was equally about producing certain forms of social, political, and economic order.

Mehr Infos zum Kolloquium gibt es hier und auf dem Poster unten.