Mathematics and instrumentalization as "Linguistic" Tools for the widespread circulation for the Widespread Circulation of science and technology

• Autores: Nathalie Huyghues Des Etages
• Localización: The Circulation of Science and Technology: Proceedings of the 4th International Conference of the European Society for the History of Science. Barcelona, 18-20 November 2010 / coord. por Antoni M. Roca Rosell, 2012, ISBN 978-84-9965-108-8, págs. 415-418
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • It is often said that mathematics is a language, a position reflected by sentences like “the sense of a physical expression in the common language”, or when we hear that this or that concept can give rise to a mathematical “translation” The concept of mathematics as a language of the sciences is also part of an epistemological debate concerning disciplinary claims for the definition of a specific but nonetheless scientific disciplinary culture. Since Newton’s Mechanics initiated the mathematization of physics, later extended to other natural sciences, the common vision of science is more or less dominated by the idea that physics constitutes the paragon of science and that, as a result, a science can reach a threshold of scientificness only when a certain degree of mathematization is achieved. These claims very often depend on the benefits or losses induced by the process of mathematization.

    One argument against mathematization is that it utilizes a physicalist ontology and that this ontology leads one to ignore specificity (of biological, human, linguistic phenomena, etc.) thus offering no more than an abusive reductionism. To the latter claim may be opposed the idea that mathematics is a language and that the difference between qualitative and quantitative properties therefore lies not in the properties inherent in the objects but in the property of the language. I will address this question not at the ontological level but rather by showing how “mathematization” can be viewed by comparison to natural language as the elaboration of a standardized language (from a linguistic point of view) which has favored the circulation of science and technology on a large scale. This, in turn, will lead me to some observations about the meaning of mathematization and about what kind of elaboration of a common language may be needed in order to favor an equally widespread dissemination of social sciences.