{"title":"Reuben Hersh","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"what-is-mathematics-really-book-reuben-hersh-9780099748311","title":"What Is Mathematics Really?","description":"This book tackles important questions which have engaged mathematicians and philosophers for thousands of years and are still being asked today. The main purpose of the book is to ask: In what sense do mathematical objects exist? How can we have knowledge of them? Why do mathematicians think mathematical entities exist for ever, independent of human action and knowledge? In clear, elegant prose and with scholarship born of first-hand experience, Reuben Hersh illuminates the mysteries behind the meaning and nature of mathematics.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49511583777041,"sku":"GOR001613009","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51683861299473,"sku":"GOR001960839","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52765906075921,"sku":"GOR002568952","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0099748312.jpg?v=1751290026"},{"product_id":"what-is-mathematics-really-book-reuben-hersh-9780224044172","title":"What is Mathematics, Really?","description":"This book tackles the important questions which have engaged mathematicians, scientists, and philosophers for thousands of years and which are still being asked today. It does so with clarity and with scholarship born of first-hand experience; a knowledge both of the ideas and of the people who have pronounced on them. The main purpose of the book is to confront philosophical problems: In what sense do mathematical objects exist? How can we have knowledge of them? Why do mathematicians think mathematical entities exist for ever, independent of human action and knowledge? The book proposes an unconventional answer: mathematics has existence or reality only as part of human culture. Despite its seeming timelessness and infallibility, it is a social, cultural, historic phenomenon.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49528436556049,"sku":"GOR002854316","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49657124192529,"sku":"GOR004650400","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51611459354897,"sku":"GOR011916393","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0224044176.jpg?v=1751227510"},{"product_id":"18-unconventional-essays-on-the-nature-of-mathematics-book-reuben-hersh-9780387257174","title":"18 Unconventional Essays on the Nature of Mathematics","description":"This book comes from the Internet. Browsing the Web, I stumbled on philosophers, cognitive scientists, sociologists, computer scientists, even mathematicians!—saying original, provocative things about mathematics. And many of these people had probably never heard of each other! So I have collected them here. This way, they can read each other’s work. I also bring back a few provocative oldies that deserve publicity. The authors are philosophers, mathematicians, a cognitive scientist, an anthropologist, a computer scientist, and a couple of sociologists. (Among the mathematicians are two Fields Prize winners and two Steele Prize w- ners. ) None are historians, I regret to say, but there are two historically o- ented articles. These essays don’t share any common program or ideology. The standard for admission was: Nothing boring! Nothing trite, nothing tr- ial! Every essay is challenging, thought-provoking, and original. Back in the 1970s when I started writing about mathematics (instead of just doing mathematics), I had to complain about the literature. Philosophy of science was already well into its modern revival (largely stimulated by the book of Thomas Kuhn). But philosophy of mathematics still seemed to be mostly foundationist ping-pong, in the ancient style of Rudolf Carnap or Willard Van Ormond Quine. The great exception was Proofs and Refutations by Imre Lakatos. But that exciting book was still virtually unknown and unread, by either mathematicians or philosophers. (I wrote an article en- tled “Introducing Imre Lakatos” in the Mathematical Intelligencer in 1978.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49621473263889,"sku":"GOR013455047","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50858826170641,"sku":"GOR006737712","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52151606870289,"sku":"NLS9780387257174","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0387257179.jpg?v=1750975272"},{"product_id":"really-what-is-mathematics-book-reuben-hersh-9780195130874","title":"Really? What is Mathematics","description":"Most philosophers of mathematics treat it as isolated, timeless, ahistorical, inhuman. Reuben Hersh argues the contrary, that mathematics must be understood as a human activity, a social phenomenon, part of human culture, historically evolved, and intelligible only in a social context. Hersh pulls the screen back to reveal mathematics as seen by professionals, debunking many mathematical myths, and demonstrating how the \"humanist\" idea of the nature of mathematics more closely resembles how mathematicians actually work. At the heart of his book is a fascinating historical account of the mainstream of philosophy--ranging from Pythagoras, Descartes, and Spinoza, to Bertrand Russell, David Hilbert, and Rudolph Carnap--followed by the mavericks who saw mathematics as a human artifact, including Aristotle, Locke, Hume, Mill, and Lakatos.\u003cbr\u003e What is Mathematics, Really? reflects an insider's view of mathematical life, and will be hotly debated by anyone with an interest in mathematics or the philosophy of science.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50131486277905,"sku":"CIN0195130871VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":50999750426897,"sku":"NIN9780195130874","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51415556456721,"sku":"CIN0195130871G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":52747497537809,"sku":"CIN0195130871A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0195130871.jpg?v=1750779923"},{"product_id":"loving-and-hating-mathematics-book-reuben-hersh-9780691142470","title":"Loving and Hating Mathematics","description":"Mathematics is often thought of as the coldest expression of pure reason. But few subjects provoke hotter emotions--and inspire more love and hatred--than mathematics. And although math is frequently idealized as floating above the messiness of human life, its story is nothing if not human; often, it is all too human. Loving and Hating Mathematics is about the hidden human, emotional, and social forces that shape mathematics and affect the experiences of students and mathematicians. Written in a lively, accessible style, and filled with gripping stories and anecdotes, Loving and Hating Mathematics brings home the intense pleasures and pains of mathematical life. These stories challenge many myths, including the notions that mathematics is a solitary pursuit and a \"young man's game,\" the belief that mathematicians are emotionally different from other people, and even the idea that to be a great mathematician it helps to be a little bit crazy. Reuben Hersh and Vera John-Steiner tell stories of lives in math from their very beginnings through old age, including accounts of teaching and mentoring, friendships and rivalries, love affairs and marriages, and the experiences of women and minorities in a field that has traditionally been unfriendly to both. Included here are also stories of people for whom mathematics has been an immense solace during times of crisis, war, and even imprisonment--as well as of those rare individuals driven to insanity and even murder by an obsession with math. This is a book for anyone who wants to understand why the most rational of human endeavors is at the same time one of the most emotional.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":50625600979217,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50625601765649,"sku":"CIN0691142475G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":53063231635729,"sku":"CIN0691142475VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0691142475.jpg?v=1750880915"},{"product_id":"peter-lax-mathematician-book-reuben-hersh-9781470417086","title":"Peter Lax, Mathematician","description":"This book is a biography of one of the most famous and influential living mathematicians, Peter Lax. He is virtually unique as a preeminent leader in both pure and applied mathematics, fields which are often seen as competing and incompatible. Although he has been an academic for all of his adult life, his biography is not without drama and tragedy. Lax and his family barely escaped to the U.S. from Budapest before the Holocaust descended. He was one of the youngest scientists to work on the Manhattan Project. He played a leading role in coping with the infamous “kidnapping” of the NYU mathematics department's computer, in 1970.  The list of topics in which Lax made fundamental and long-lasting contributions is remarkable: scattering theory, solitons, shock waves, and even classical analysis, to name a few. His work has been honored many times, including the Abel Prize in 2005. The book concludes with an account of his most important mathematical contributions, made accessible without heavy prerequisites.  Reuben Hersh has written extensively on mathematics. His book with Philip Davis, The Mathematical Experience, won the National Book Award in science. Hersh is emeritus professor of mathematics at the University of New Mexico, USA.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52705582842129,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52705582940433,"sku":"GOR014589692","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9781470417086.jpg?v=1762710103"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/de-ch\/collections\/autor-buecher-von-reuben-hersh.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}