Coventry, United Kingdom

Mathematics and Philosophy

Bachelor's
Language: EnglishStudies in English
Subject area: mathematics and statistics
Qualification: BA, BSc
Kind of studies: full-time studies
Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Science (BA/BSc)
University website: www.warwick.ac.uk
Mathematics
Mathematics (from Greek μάθημα máthēma, "knowledge, study, learning") is the study of such topics as quantity, structure, space, and change. It has no generally accepted definition.
Philosophy
Philosophy (from Greek φιλοσοφία, philosophia, literally "love of wisdom") is the study of general and fundamental problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. The term was probably coined by Pythagoras (c. 570–495 BCE). Philosophical methods include questioning, critical discussion, rational argument, and systematic presentation. Classic philosophical questions include: Is it possible to know anything and to prove it? What is most real? Philosophers also pose more practical and concrete questions such as: Is there a best way to live? Is it better to be just or unjust (if one can get away with it)? Do humans have free will?
Mathematics
By relieving the brain of all unnecessary work, a good notation sets it free to concentrate on more advanced problems, and in effect increases... mental power... Probably nothing in the modern world would have more astonished a Greek mathematician than to learn that, under the influence of compulsory education, the whole population of Western Europe, from the highest to the lowest, could perform the operation of division for the largest numbers. This fact would have seemed to him a sheer impossibility.
Alfred North Whitehead, An Introduction to Mathematics (1911) Ch. 5, p. 59.
Philosophy
Philosophy makes progress not by becoming more rigorous but by becoming more imaginative.
Richard Rorty, introduction to Truth and Progress: Philosophical Papers, Volume 3 (1998).
Philosophy
It is as absurd to expect members of philosophy departments to be philosophers as it is to expect members of art departments to be artists.
Leo Strauss, “What is liberal education?” Liberalism, Ancient and Modern (1968), p. 7. Reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 596-97.
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