back to ideas for this text


Single Idea 12417

[from 'Treatise of Human Nature' by David Hume, in 13. Knowledge Criteria / C. External Justification / 8. Social Justification ]

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 Reference

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.