Special:Badtitle/NS104:DKS/Translating Euclid - Designing a Human-Centered Mathematics
An interesting new book by Gerry Stahl. Quote:
“The wellsprings of human creativity and logical thinking that flowed forth in the origins of Greek geometry were progressively covered over and transformed into regulated procedures and otherworldly objects. 20th century philosophy frames this cover-up as a paradigmatic example of the over-reach of rationalization. In the sequence of world-historic epochs, successive reification of phenomena of geometry and more generally of the being of objects altered the relation of people to reality. These transformations are associated with the rise of rationalism and an ideology of individualism. Although these changes brought powerful advantages, they now need to be balanced by an approach of human-centered informatics, which guides students to understand the principles of geometry as products of human creative-discovery.” (p. 29).
This book has passages addressing problems beyond geometry, i.e. I bought it because it also addresses design “The proposed conception of geometry emphasizes the central role of the construction of dependencies as a design activity, integrating human creation and mathematical discovery to form a human-centered approach to mathematics.” (Abstract)
- Stahl, G. (2013). Translating Euclid: Creating a human-centered mathematics: Morgan & Claypool Publishers. 325 pages. Abstract/buy
- Web page: http://GerryStahl.net/elibrary/euclid
- There is also a preprint