<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p> In this paper I concentrate on Euclidean diagrams, namely on those diagrams that are licensed by the rules of Euclid’s plane geometry. I shall overview some philosophical stances that have recently been proposed in philosophy of mathematics to account for the role of such diagrams in mathematics, and more particularly in Euclid’s Elements. Furthermore, I shall provide an original analysis of the epistemic role that Euclidean diagrams may (and, indeed) have in empirical sciences, more specifically in physics. I shall claim that, although the world we live in is not Euclidean, Euclidean diagrams permit to obtain knowledge of the world through a specific mechanism of inference I shall call inheritance.</p></abstract>

In this paper I concentrate on Euclidean diagrams, namely on those diagrams that are licensed by the rules of Euclid’s plane geometry. I shall overview some philosophical stances that have recently been proposed in philosophy of mathematics to account for the role of such diagrams in mathematics, and more particularly in Euclid’s Elements. Furthermore, I shall provide an original analysis of the epistemic role that Euclidean diagrams may (and, indeed) have in empirical sciences, more specifically in physics. I shall claim that, although the world we live in is not Euclidean, Euclidean diagrams permit to obtain knowledge of the world through a specific mechanism of inference I shall call inheritance.

The Epistemological Import of Euclidean Diagrams (in a non-Euclidean world)

Department of Philosophy, Communication and Performing Arts University of Rome, ‘Roma TRE’,

Kairos. Journal of Philosophy & Science

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.

{"article-title":"The Epistemological Import of Euclidean Diagrams (in a non-Euclidean world)"}

In this paper I concentrate on Euclidean diagrams, namely on those diagrams that are licensed by the rules of Euclid’s plane geometry. I shall overview some...

The Epistemological Import of Euclidean Diagrams (in a non-Euclidean world)

Published Online: Nov 08, 2016

Page range: 124 - 141

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/kjps-2016-0012

© 2016

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.