The Biology of Mathematical Knowledge

Abstract

Students studying the philosophy of mathematics were the subjects of an experiment to examine the functioning of the cerebral hemispheres. Results show that students whose right hemisphere is more developed than their left tended to prefer Platonistically presented logicism over nominalistical formalism. They also tended to prefer Brouwer's intuitionalism, which is based on Kant's temporal mode of perception, over Frege's geometrical approach. The result is tentatively explained by an information theoretical model of the brain's functioning and is related to the current discussion regarding constructivism and Kant's theory of consciousness.

Citation

Fidelman, U. (1990), "The Biology of Mathematical Knowledge", Kybernetes, Vol. 19 No. 2, pp. 34-52. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb005841