more from this thinker | more from this text
Full Idea
There is no Mathematician so expert as to place entire confidence in any truth upon his discovery of it. ..Every time he runs over his proofs his confidence encreases, ..and is rais'd to perfection by the applause of the learned world.
Gist of Idea
Mathematicians only accept their own proofs when everyone confims them
Source
David Hume (Treatise of Human Nature [1739], IV.1.4)
Book Ref
Hume,David: 'A Treatise of Human Nature', ed/tr. Selby-Bigge/Nidditch [OUP 1978], p.180
A Reaction
[compressed] Quoted by Kitcher, and a nice example of the social nature of 'warrants', even in mathematics. It was illustrated well in the 1990s by the story of the proof of Fermat's Last Theorem by Andrew Wiles.
| 10326 | Other men's opinions don't add to our knowledge - even when they are true [Locke] |
| 12417 | Mathematicians only accept their own proofs when everyone confims them [Hume] |
| 6599 | Knowing has no definable essence, but is a social right, found in the context of conversations [Rorty] |
| 8800 | If you would deny a truth if you know the full evidence, then knowledge has social aspects [Harman, by Sosa] |
| 3270 | Justifications come to an end when we want them to [Nagel] |
| 2772 | Coherentism moves us towards a more social, shared view of knowledge [Dancy,J] |
| 10323 | Communitarian Epistemology says 'knowledge' is a social status granted to groups of people [Kusch] |
| 10335 | Myths about lonely genius are based on epistemological individualism [Kusch] |
| 10348 | Private justification is justification to imagined other people [Kusch] |