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Re: [HM] Non-mathematical use of axiomatics
Posted:
Nov 3, 2000 5:08 AM
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Subject: Toward a language for science
At the end of their request (Oct. 23) for examples of non-mathe-
matical uses of axiomatics, Rikard Boegvad and Paul Vaderlind
asked: "Is there, by the way, anything written on the general
rhetorical evolution of mathematical or scientific presentation?"
I venture to recommend in this line a splendid paper by well-
known historian of rhetoric Brian Vickers, "The Royal Society and
English Prose Style: A Reassessment", in _Rhetoric and the Pur-
suit of Truth: Language Change in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth
Centuries_ (no editor named; UCLA, 1985). This focuses mainly on
the famous proposals for linguistic reform which Thomas Sprat in-
cluded in his _History of the Royal Society ... _ (1667). But
the article is much wider than its title suggests -- it sketches
the prior history of such reforms, with special attention to
Francis Bacon, and it also describes and (apparently) corrects a
good deal of previous scholarship on the subject. In the fas-
cinating evolution of a language appropriate for science, mathe-
matics was arguably not so much a participant as a model and in-
spiration, as when Sprat urged the Royal Society toward "Mathe-
matical plainness" of expression. I can't resist adding that
-- at the polar opposite of "mathematical plainness" -- Vickers'
paper contains a treasure trove of (as they now seem) poignantly
bizarre 17th-century English coinages from Latin ("feculancy",
"impetiginous", "labefaction", ... ), most of which have now at
best a ghostly survival in dictionaries.
Hardy Grant, Ottawa
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