Article ID: CBB001320192

A Natural History of Mathematics: George Peacock and the Making of English Algebra (2013)

unapi

In a series of papers read to the Cambridge Philosophical Society through the 1820s, the Cambridge mathematician George Peacock laid the foundation for a natural history of arithmetic that would tell a story of human progress from counting to modern arithmetic. The trajectory of that history, Peacock argued, established algebraic analysis as a form of universal reasoning that used empirically warranted operations of mind to think with symbols on paper. The science of counting would suggest arithmetic, arithmetic would suggest arithmetical algebra, and, finally, arithmetical algebra would suggest symbolic algebra. This philosophy of suggestion provided the foundation for Peacock's principle of equivalent forms, which justified the practice of nineteenth-century English symbolic algebra. Peacock's philosophy of suggestion owed a considerable debt to the early Cambridge Philosophical Society culture of natural history. The aim of this essay is to show how that culture of natural history was constitutively significant to the practice of nineteenth-century English algebra.

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Authors & Contributors
Verburgt, Lukas M.
Panza, Marco
Gray, Jeremy
Boucard, Jenny
Mechthild Koreuber
Krzanowski, W. J.
Concepts
Mathematics
Algebra
Philosophy of mathematics
Arithmetic
Number theory; number concept
Science and culture
Time Periods
19th century
20th century, early
18th century
20th century
Places
British Isles
Italy
Greece
France
Great Britain
Institutions
University of Chicago
Cambridge University
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