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Kant on conic sections

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Alison Laywine
Alison Laywine*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, McGill University, Montreal, Canada
*
*Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

This paper tries to make sense of Kant’s scattered remarks about conic sections to see what light they shed on his philosophy of mathematics. It proceeds by confronting his remarks with the source that seems to have informed his thinking about conic sections: the Conica of Apollonius. The paper raises questions about Kant’s attitude towards mathematics and the way he understood the cognitive resources available to us to do mathematics.

Keywords

KantApolloniusconic sections
Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 44 , Issue 5-6: Special Issue: Mathematics in Kant’s Critical Philosophy , December 2014 , pp. 719 - 758
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Journal of Philosophy 2014

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