Is Mathematics Problem Solving or Theorem Proving?

详细信息    查看全文

• 作者：Carlo Cellucci
• 关键词：Problem solving ; Theorem proving ; Analytic method ; Axiomatic method ; David Hilbert ; Incompleteness theorems
• 刊名：Foundations of Science
• 出版年：2017
• 出版时间：March 2017
• 年：2017
• 卷：22
• 期：1
• 页码：183-199
• 全文大小：
• 刊物类别：Humanities, Social Sciences and Law
• 刊物主题：Philosophy of Science; Methodology of the Social Sciences; Mathematical Logic and Foundations;
• 出版者：Springer Netherlands
• ISSN：1572-8471
• 卷排序：22

文摘

The question that is the subject of this article is not intended to be a sociological or statistical question about the practice of today’s mathematicians, but a philosophical question about the nature of mathematics, and specifically the method of mathematics. Since antiquity, saying that mathematics is problem solving has been an expression of the view that the method of mathematics is the analytic method, while saying that mathematics is theorem proving has been an expression of the view that the method of mathematics is the axiomatic method. In this article it is argued that these two views of the mathematical method are really opposed. In order to answer the question whether mathematics is problem solving or theorem proving, the article retraces the Greek origins of the question and Hilbert’s answer. Then it argues that, by Gödel’s incompleteness results and other reasons, only the view that mathematics is problem solving is tenable.