Searches for the origins of the epistemological concept of model in mathematics (Q2357601): Difference between revisions

The author inquires the origins of the concept of model in mathematics in its epistemologically relevant meaning. He emphasizes that ``the key question for the emergence of the concept of model within mathematics is to identify when and how mathematicians became aware that there is not just \textit{one} mathematics, but that there can coexist a \textit{plurality} of `mathematics'.'' For the author it is clear that admitting models in mathematics entails ``not less than an epistemological break, a new conception of the nature of mathematics'' (p.\ 246). In the first sections of his paper the author checks whether this epistemological side of the concept has been observed in the common views of this concept as introduced and transported by historiographical studies on non-Euclidean geometry. He discusses the relation of the concept of model to model theory created by A.\ Tarski, but argues for its independence. He furthermore discusses the differences in use and epistemology between models in theoretical physics and in mathematics. L.\ Boltzmann, e.g., understood models as symbolizations, ``as sign for the signified'' (p.\ 254), facilitating the generalization from material representations to mental representations. In a next critical step the author investigates which meaning of `model' mathematicians are said to have used in the second half of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, in particular in connection with non-Euclidean geometries. Among others the author discusses E.\ Beltrami who speaks about interpretations, F.\ Klein's metrics with ontological, not epistemological implications, and H.\ Poincaré 's introducing `convenience', not, however, in an epistemological sense. The concept of model in the epistemological sense was introduced in the historiography of mathematics by \textit{H. S. M. Coxeter} as ``a convenient representation in terms of more familiar concepts'' [Non-euclidean geometry. Math. Expositions. 2, Toronto: University of Toronto Press. XV, 281 p (1942; Zbl 0060.32807; JFM 68.0322.02), p.\ 13]. He might have been influenced by meta-mathematical work, in particular [\textit{D. Hilbert} and \textit{P. Bernays}, Grundlagen der Mathematik. I. Berlin: Springer (1934; JFM 60.0017.02)] with their distinction between formal and contentual (\textit{inhaltliche}) mathematics. The author shows that in this context the first publication using `model' was written by Hilbert's oppositional student \textit{H. Weyl} [Raum, Zeit, Materie. Berlin: Springer (1918; JFM 46.1277.01)].