Enter your mobile number or email address below and we'll send you a link to download the free Kindle App. Then you can start reading Kindle books on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.

  • Apple
  • Android
  • Windows Phone
  • Android

To get the free app, enter your mobile phone number.
Download to your computer
Kindle Cloud Reader

Plato's Ghost: The Modernist Transformation of Mathematics First Edition Edition

by
Jeremy Gray (Author)
› Visit Amazon's Jeremy Gray Page
Find all the books, read about the author, and more.
See search results for this author
Are you an author? Learn about Author Central
Jeremy Gray (Author)
4.3 out of 5 stars 3 customer reviews
ISBN-13: 978-0691136103
ISBN-10: 0691136106
Why is ISBN important?
ISBN
This bar-code number lets you verify that you're getting exactly the right version or edition of a book. The 13-digit and 10-digit formats both work.
Scan an ISBN with your phone
Use the Amazon App to scan ISBNs and compare prices.
Have one to sell? Sell on Amazon

Sorry, there was a problem.

There was an error retrieving your Wish Lists. Please try again.

Sorry, there was a problem.

List unavailable.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest
Buy used On clicking this link, a new layer will be open
$25.82 On clicking this link, a new layer will be open
Buy new On clicking this link, a new layer will be open
$50.88 On clicking this link, a new layer will be open
More Buying Choices
19 New from $26.01 22 Used from $21.83
41 used & new from $21.83
See All Buying Options
Free Two-Day Shipping for College Students with Prime Student Free%20Two-Day%20Shipping%20for%20College%20Students%20with%20Amazon%20Student

The Amazon Book Review
The Amazon Book Review
Author interviews, book reviews, editors picks, and more. Read it now
$50.88 FREE Shipping. Only 2 left in stock (more on the way). Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. Gift-wrap available.
click to open popover

Frequently Bought Together

  • Plato's Ghost: The Modernist Transformation of Mathematics
  • +
  • Worlds Out of Nothing: A Course in the History of Geometry in the 19th Century (Springer Undergraduate Mathematics Series)
Total price: $100.83
Buy the selected items together

Customers Viewing This Page May Be Interested In These Sponsored Links

  (What's this?)
NO_CONTENT_IN_FEATURE
New York Times best sellers
Browse the New York Times best sellers in popular categories like Fiction, Nonfiction, Picture Books and more. See more

Product Details

  • Hardcover: 528 pages
  • Publisher: Princeton University Press; First Edition edition (September 22, 2008)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0691136106
  • ISBN-13: 978-0691136103
  • Product Dimensions: 7.1 x 1.5 x 10.1 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 2.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,304,623 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

    •  Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?

Customers Viewing This Page May Be Interested In These Sponsored Links

  (What's this?)

Customer Reviews

5 star
67%
4 star
0%
3 star
33%
2 star
0%
1 star
0%
See all 3 customer reviews
Share your thoughts with other customers
Write a customer review

Top Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 starsParty-line modernism
By Viktor Blasjo on November 25, 2009
Format: Hardcover
This book has nothing in particular to say. It fills its pages with unimaginative, thoroughly neutral, semi-encyclopaedic surveys of one branch of mathematics after another, one philosophical debate after another, and so on, while offering next to nothing by way of synthesis or interpretation.

I shall criticise Gray for being rather more uncritical than befits a historian in his acceptance of party-line modernism. The tenet of party-line modernism that I shall focus on is the myth that history shows that intuition must be abandoned since it leads to "false" results. It is an important task for historians to reject such propaganda abuses of history as the fabrications that they are; but unfortunately Gray is somewhat rubbing the back of the establishment in this case.

A typical statement of the myth in question is the following passage, where Gray is supposedly quasi-paraphrasing Perron:

"Spatial intuition is a very frequent source of error, especially when it is used to supplant proofs, as, for example, in proofs of the intermediate value theorem. 'Intuition is a crude instrument that lets us make out true relationships only imprecisely' (p. 204), and this is particularly so of our understanding of curves, which may fail in all sorts of ways to have the intuitive properties one suspects." (p. 275)

The propaganda myth is that intuition leads one to suspect that curves should have certain properties while they really don't. Rather, the problem is that the intuitive notion of "curve" does not correspond precisely to the formal mathematical notion. So the "error" referred to above is not at all an error of intuition; it is the error of stupidly taking intuition to apply to formal objects.Read more ›
Comment 44 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
Report abuse
5.0 out of 5 starsGray Excells
By Kodiak on April 28, 2013
Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase
Plato's Ghost covers the development of mathematics from 1880 to 1920, which is a topic that would normally challenge even the very best writers of science. Yet, Gray handles the material with ease in a manner that allows both mathematicians and non-mathematicians to grasp the significance of the key events and players in this field. At the same time, this subject matter is well-documented, so the reader can easily follow up on anything he or she might have a greater interest in pursuing. Gray is such a good writer on science and mathematics, that I have decided that I must consider reading anything he writes in these disciplines. I am now reading his next book, Henri Poincare, A Scientific Biography on the French mathematician and physicist. Poincare, like David Hilbert the German mathematician, each came very close to discovering relativity; so it is interesting to compare their work on a layman's level to that of Albert Einstein's. If anything, Gray is handling even more complex subject matter than in Plato's Ghost, yet once again with great ease. I highly recommend Plato's Ghost to anyone who is looking for an excellent introduction to this period in the development of mathematics; and I highly recommend that you consider reading Jeremy Gray, if you have an interest in mathematics and science. Gray sets a standard that will be hard for other writers in these disciplines to achieve.
Comment 3 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
Report abuse
5.0 out of 5 starsPlato's Ghost: The Modernist Transformation of Mathematics
By Sam Adams on February 15, 2011
Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase
Gray's thesis, subdued through much of the book, is that the rise of modern mathematics not only coincided with the rise of what historians call Modernism in the arts, but that mathematics in its own way shared with Modernism an analogous change in viewpoints, values, and intellectual concerns. He doesn't propose any specific influences from the arts upon mathematics or particular mathematicians, although he does briefly note influences going the other way.

In philosophy, however, the stature of Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) and therefore of Kant's views on cognition and intuition in mathematics, especially in the light of the later discoveries of non-Euclidean geometry, stimulated mathematicians' thinking about mathematics as being within the purview of cognition and about mathematicians' own notions of the cognitive status and role of so-called mathematical intuition in mathematical knowledge. This scrutiny of epistemological concepts in relation to mathematics included, and indeed required, a critical examination of the pivotal notions of logic, definition, and proof. Here, the philosophical convictions of Gottfried Leibniz (1646-1716) on the nature of logic and on the relation of mathematics to logic stimulated mathematicians' thinking.

The development of mathematics had reached a point where mathematicians were concerned to find the unequivocal and comprehensive epistemological basis of mathematics. That basis, if it was not found in some form external to mathematics, be it as Kant traced it or otherwise, would be found within the anatomy of mathematics itself. This left open the question of the cognitive relations of mathematics to the physical world.Read more ›
2 Comments 6 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
Report abuse

Set up an Amazon Giveaway

Plato's Ghost: The Modernist Transformation of Mathematics
Amazon Giveaway allows you to run promotional giveaways in order to create buzz, reward your audience, and attract new followers and customers. Learn more about Amazon Giveaway
This item: Plato's Ghost: The Modernist Transformation of Mathematics
Set up a giveaway

There's a problem loading this menu right now.

Learn more about Amazon Prime.