The history of mathematics in the progress of mankind

modifying the narrative around 1800

Maarten Bullynck

pp. 9-23

in: Volker R. Remmert, Martina R. Schneider, Per Kragh-Sørensen (eds), Historiography of mathematics in the 19th and 20th centuries, Basel, Birkhäuser, 2016

Abstract

The narrative patterning of historiography changed profoundly around 1800. Instead of the accumulative, encyclopaedic format typical of the 18th century, a historical narrative hinged on the progress of mankind became viable (Condorcet, Fichte etc.). This also had an impact on the writing of the history of mathematics. An interesting testimony of this transition can be found in Alexander von Humboldt's project on the origin and development of the decimal positional numeral system. What originally started as an ethnographic and encyclopaedic project became a hypothetical history of ideas, inspired by the new philologies and the new mathematics.

Cited authors

Fichte Johann Gottlieb

von Humboldt Alexander