 "Photo: Irin Son")
For most people, philosophy and mathematics are opposites; the idea of studying them relationally would be out of the question. For UC Riverside's Associate Professor of Philosophy Erich Reck, however, this is not the case. He was recently awarded a $142, 922 grant from the National Science Foundation to study this relationship, alongside Richard Dedekind, who pioneered the study of this relationship.
Reck has been studying the tie between philosophy and mathematics for the past 12 years.
"The relationship between methodological and metaphysical views in science, the notions of explanation and understanding, the intertwining of conceptual continuity and change-have significance beyond mathematics, for human knowledge as a whole," Reck stated in a press release.
The main focus of the study will be to better understand the studies done by Richard Dedekind, a mathematics pioneer who, among other concepts, came up with the idea of what he called the Dedekind Cut. This concept explains the relationship between rational and irrational numbers. Although concepts such as the Dedekind Cut are well known among relevant circles, it is the systematic study of these concepts which Reck hopes to explore with this grant.
Understanding that math and philosophy are indeed separate subjects, what these two areas of academia do for each other is what Reck is particularly interested in.
"In my work, I tend to combine considerations of historical figures and developments with contributions to contemporary debates. […] I am also often interested in connections between relatively narrow questions arising out of the exact sciences and broader questions about language, reasoning and experience," he says on his website. If indeed the relationship between philosophy and mathematics is as strong as Reck claims that it is, studying the research of the man who pioneered this area should have significant implications for the future of both subject areas.
Reck explains further that narrow questions arising from the exact sciences, can help answer more broad philosophical questions such as the relationship between ideas of language, and reasoning, to notions of objectivity, and infinity.
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