Hermeneutical Reflections on Mathematical Significance

Abstract

This paper aims to investigate the meaning of mathematics in context of its applicability. Realism and Nominalism as dominant traditional ways of philosophizing are critically analyzed with the end of working out the problematics that would lead to the priority of the question of applicability over abstract theorizing about metaphysical existence of mathematical entities. An answer to the question of applicability will be examined to the extent which would lead to an analogy with historical practices of classical philology. Interpretive historical inquiry will be made to further extend analogy between the role of mathematics in context of its descriptive applicability in natural sciences, and the role of Dilthey’s hermeneutics as universal methodology for human sciences. The purpose of this investigation is to enrich conventional conceptions of mathematics within the sphere of mathematics education to incorporate a possibility of a hermeneutic approach to mathematical pedagogy.

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