Skip Navigation


The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science Advance Access originally published online on February 13, 2007
The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 2007 58(1):77-112; doi:10.1093/bjps/axl030
This Article
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
58/1/77    most recent
axl030v1
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in ISI Web of Science
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by McLarty, C.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

Copyright © The Author 2007. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of British Society for the Philosophy of Science.

The Last Mathematician from Hilbert's Göttingen: Saunders Mac Lane as Philosopher of Mathematics

Colin McLarty

Department of Philosophy, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH, USA 44106

colin.mclarty{at}case.edu


  Abstract

While Saunders Mac Lane studied for his D.Phil in Göttingen, he heard David Hilbert's weekly lectures on philosophy, talked philosophy with Hermann Weyl, and studied it with Moritz Geiger. Their philosophies and Emmy Noether's algebra all influenced his conception of category theory, which has become the working structure theory of mathematics. His practice has constantly affirmed that a proper large-scale organization for mathematics is the most efficient path to valuable specific results—while he sees that the question of which results are valuable has an ineliminable philosophic aspect. His philosophy relies on the ideas of truth and existence he studied in Göttingen. His career is a case study relating naturalism in philosophy of mathematics to philosophy as it naturally arises in mathematics.

  1. Introduction
  2. Structures and Morphisms
  3. Varieties of Structuralism
  4. Göttingen
  5. Logic: Mac Lane's Dissertation
  6. Emmy Noether
  7. Natural Transformations
  8. Grothendieck: Toposes and Universes
  9. Lawvere and Foundations
  10. Truth and Existence
  11. Naturalism
  12. Austere Forms of Beauty


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?




Disclaimer: Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.