Another day, another new book to mention. My current and recent colleagues Mary Leng, Alexander Paseau, and Michael Potter have edited revised versions of some of the papers from the 2004 conference held here in Cambridge on Mathematical Knowledge. It is quite a slim, expensive, hardback; but it should certainly at least be in your university library, if only for the three papers by the editors.
I wonder why they thought that Durer’s ‘Melancholia’ was an apt illustration for the cover …?
I was speaking about this only last night.
First, because Durer’s Melancholia is represented as a philosopher surrounded by the tools of the geometer and contemplating a funny shaped solid. But also because philosophy ought to induce melancholy in students. The difficulty of the questions shouldn’t turn them off so that they want to talk about something else, but nor should they blithely be willing to give easy answers to the questions. In a word: philosophy ought to make you unhappy. In a good way.