Kant's Philosophy of Mathematics: Volume 1, The Critical Philosophy and its Roots

Essential for students and scholars, this book brings contemporary Kantian scholarship together with the history of philosophy of mathematics.

Kant's views about mathematics are central to his philosophical thought. This book presents a comprehensive picture of current scholarship on the development of Kant's philosophy of mathematics, together with discussions of its place in his overall philosophy. It treats both broad historical issues and fine-grained questions of interpretation.The late 1960s saw the emergence of new philosophical interest in Kant's philosophy of mathematics, and since then this interest has developed into a major and dynamic field of study. In this state-of-the-art survey of contemporary scholarship on Kant's mathematical thinking, Carl Posy and Ofra Rechter gather leading authors who approach it from multiple perspectives, engaging with topics including geometry, arithmetic, logic, and metaphysics. Their essays offer fine-grained analysis of Kant's philosophy of mathematics in the context of his Critical philosophy, and also show sensitivity to its historical background. The volume will be important for readers seeking a comprehensive picture of the current scholarship about the development of Kant's philosophy of mathematics, its place in his overall philosophy, and the Kantian themes that influenced mathematics and its philosophy after Kant.