On Sat, 1 Jan 2005, Jon Johanning wrote:
> You are talking about a culture's *knowledge* of mathematics, not mathematics
> itself. This is a common problem with sociologists, etc. -- confusing what
> people know or believe about a subject with the subject itself.
>
> Jon Johanning // jjohanning at igc.org
So if there were no humans doing math, teaching math, learning math, and generating math texts, mathematics would still exist? I don't see the practical sense in which this is true. Our knowledge of mathematics is a product of complex social relations, and if you take away the social relations, there would be no mathematics. (All we have is our intersubjectively created knowledge of mathematics; there is no way to verify J's claim that math exists above and beyond human understanding, because all we have is--human understanding!)
In my view, the most common problem with sociologists et al. is assuming that the products of human social interaction would somehow magically exist without praxis (the analogy between God and math is apt here).
Miles