Incomplete understanding of complex numbers. Girolamo Cardano: a case study in the acquisition of mathematical concepts (Q2263062)

This philosophical paper contains an argument that Christopher Peacocke's conceptual role theory is insufficient to explain what it means to possess a concept, and that anti-individualism might be a better approach. The case study is Gerolamo Cardano's incomplete mastery of complex numbers. These arose from his study of cubic and quartic equations in the \textit{Ars magna} (1545). Cardano's rudimentary understanding of his own discovery and his ambivalence to it lead the author to the conclusion that Cardano does not (as required by Peacocke's theory) have ``certain dispositions to make judgments or inferences'' on this topic. Rather, an approach asserting that mental states depend on ``relations between a subject matter beyond the individual and the individual that has these mental states'' seems more fruitful in situations such as this one, where the discoverer's understanding is deficient.