CULTURE, KNOWLEDGE AND THE SELF: MATHEMATICS AND THE FORMATION OF NEW SOCIAL SENSIBILITIES IN THE RENAISSANCE AND MEDIEVAL ISLAM

Abstract

Some decades ago, to talk about mathematics and culture would not have made too much sense. There was a time –a really long time, indeed– when mathematics was thought of as
something beyond cultures. Mathematics, at least in the Western tradition, was thought to deal with eternal objects and the discovery of disembodied truths. Although Platonist views
of mathematics have not vanished (Patras, 2001, p. 35), in the past decades, new perspectives on culture, mathematics and mathematical thinking have emerged.