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i

What Is a Mathematical Concept?

Responding to widespread interest within cultural studies and social inquiry, this book
addresses the question of what a mathematical concept is by using a variety of vanguard
theories in the humanities and post-humanities. Tapping into historical, philosophi-
cal, sociological and psychological perspectives, each chapter explores the question of
how mathematics comes to matter. Of interest to scholars across the usual disciplinary
divides, this book tracks mathematics as a cultural activity, drawing connections with
empirical practice. Unlike other books in this area, it is highly interdisciplinary, devoted
to exploring the ontology of mathematics as it plays out in different contexts. This book
will appeal to scholars who are interested in particular mathematical habits –​creative
diagramming, structural mappings, material agency, interdisciplinary coverings –​that
shed light on both mathematics and other disciplines. Chapters are also relevant to
social sciences and humanities scholars, as each one offers philosophical insight into
mathematics and how we might live mathematically.

Elizabeth de Freitas is a professor in the Education and Social Research Institute at

Manchester Metropolitan University. Her research focuses on philosophical investigations
of mathematics, science and technology, and pursuing the implications and applications of
this work within cultural studies. She is a co-​author of the book Mathematics and the Body:
Material Entanglements in the Classroom, associate editor of the journal Educational Studies
in Mathematics and has written more than 50 chapters and articles on diverse topics.

Nathalie Sinclair is the Canada Research Chair in Tangible Mathematics Learning at

Simon Fraser University. She is the author of several books, including co-author of
Mathematics and the Body: Material Entanglements in the Classroom and co-editor of
Mathematics and the Aesthetic: New Approaches to an Ancient Affinity, as well as more
than 50 articles. She has also led the design of educational technologies, including the
touchscreen app TouchCounts and dynamic geometry microworlds for young learners
(www.sfu.ca/​geometry4yl). She is the founding editor of the journal Digital Experiences
in Mathematics Education.

Alf Coles’ recently published Engaging in School Mathematics: Symbols and Experiences
draws on more than 20 years of work as a teacher-​researcher at both primary and secondary
levels. He is on the executive committee of the British Society for Research into Learning
Mathematics and is an active member of the Mathematics Education Special Interest Group
of the British Educational Research Association. His current interests include drawing his
work in mathematics education into closer dialogue with issues of sustainability.
ii
iii

What Is a Mathematical Concept?

Edited by
Elizabeth de Freitas
Manchester Metropolitan University

Nathalie Sinclair
Simon Fraser University

Alf Coles
University of Bristol
iv

One Liberty Plaza, 20th Floor, New York, NY 10006, USA

Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge.

It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of
education, learning, and research at the highest international levels of excellence.

www.cambridge.org
Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/​9781107134638
DOI: 10.1017/9781316471128
© Elizabeth de Freitas, Nathalie Sinclair and Alf Coles 2017
This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception
and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without the written
permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published 2017
A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-​in-​Publication Data
Names: De Freitas, Elizabeth. | Sinclair, Nathalie. | Coles, Alf.
Title: What is a mathematical concept? / [edited by] Elizabeth de Freitas,
Manchester Metropolitan University, Nathalie Sinclair, Simon Fraser University,
Alf Coles, University of Bristol.
Description: Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017. |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016059487 | ISBN 9781107134638 (hard back)
Subjects: LCSH: Mathematics – Social aspects. | Mathematics – Philosophy.
Classification: LCC QA10.7.W43 2017 | DDC 510.1–dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016059487
ISBN 978-​1-​107-​13463-​8 Hardback
Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs
for external or third-​party Internet Web sites referred to in this publication and does not
guarantee that any content on such Web sites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.
v

Contents

List of Images page vii

Notes on Contributors ix

Introduction 1

Part I

1 Of Polyhedra and Pyjamas: Platonism and Induction

in Meaning-Finitist Mathematics 19
Michael J. Barany
2 Mathematical Concepts? The View from Ancient History 36
Reviel Netz

Part II

3 Notes on the Syntax and Semantics Distinction, or Three

Moments in the Life of the Mathematical Drawing 55
Juliette Kennedy
4 Concepts as Generative Devices 76
Elizabeth de Freitas and Nathalie Sinclair

Part III

5 Bernhard Riemann’s Conceptual Mathematics and the

Pedagogy of Mathematical Concepts 93
Arkady Plotnitsky

v
vi

vi Contents

6 Deleuze and the Conceptualisable Character

of Mathematical Theories 108
Simon B. Duffy

Part IV

7 Homotopy Type Theory and the Vertical Unity of Concepts

in Mathematics 125
David Corfield
8 The Perfectoid Concept: Test Case for an Absent Theory 143
Michael Harris

Part V

9 Queering Mathematical Concepts 161

Heather Mendick
10 Mathematics Concepts in the News 175
Richard Barwell and Yasmine Abtahi
11 Concepts and Commodities in Mathematical Learning 189
Tony Brown

Part VI

12 A Relational View of Mathematical Concepts 205

Alf Coles
13 Cultural Concepts Concretely 223
Wolff-​Michael Roth

Part VII

14 Ideas as Species 237

Brent Davis
15 Inhabiting Mathematical Concepts 251
Ricardo Nemirovsky

Part VIII

16 Making a Thing of It: Some Conceptual Commentary 269

David Pimm

Index 285
vii

Images

Cover image by Akiko Ikeuchi, Knotted Thread-​Red-​h120cm

Part I Elizabeth de Freitas: Partition problems, 2016
Part II Andy Goldsworthy: Work with Cattails, Installation
Pori Art Museum. Photo: Erkki Valli-​Jaakola, 2011
Part III Kazuko Miyamoto: Black Poppy. Installation view
at A.I.R. Gallery, NY. Image and artwork. Courtesy
Kazuko Miyamoto and EXILE, Berlin, 1979
Part IV Dick Tahta: Moves about (fragment from his private papers)
Part V María Clara Cortéz: Tell me what you forget and I will
tell you who you are. 2009
Part VI Kathrin Hilten: Plane lines, Lubec 8/​31/​10-​1, 2010
Part VII Tania Ennor: Human spirograph, 2016
Part VIII David Swanson: Eight sixes, 2016

vii
viii
ix

Notes on Contributors

Yasmine Abtahi is a part-​ time professor at the Faculty of Education,

University of Ottawa and post-doctoral research fellow at the Université du
Québec à Montréal. Her research includes work on mathematical tools and
artefacts.
MICHAEL J. BARANY is a postdoctoral fellow in the Dartmouth College Society
of Fellows. He recently completed his PhD in Princeton University’s Program
in History of Science with a dissertation on the globalization of mathematics
as an elite scholarly discipline in the mid-twentieth century. His research on
the relationship between abstract knowledge and the modern world has led to
articles (all available at http://mbarany.com) on such topics as dots, numbers,
rigour, blackboards, basalt, bureaucracy, communism and internationalism,
from the sixteenth century to the present.
Richard Barwell is Professor of Mathematics Education at the Faculty of
Education, University of Ottawa. His research includes work on language,
multilingualism and discourse analysis in mathematics education. He was
educated in the United Kingdom before moving to Canada in 2006. Prior to his
academic career, he taught mathematics in the United Kingdom and Pakistan.
Tony Brown is Professor of Mathematics Education at Manchester
Metropolitan University, where he also leads research in teacher education.
Brown’s work explores how contemporary theory provides new insights into
educational contexts. He has written seven books including three volumes for
Springer’s prestigious Mathematics Education Library series. He convenes the
Manchester-​based conference on Mathematics Education and Contemporary
Theory.
Alf Coles is Senior Lecturer in Education (Mathematics) at the University
of Bristol. He gained a research council scholarship for his PhD study that

ix
x

x Notes on Contributors

was adapted as a book: Being Alongside: For the Teaching and Learning of
Mathematics (2013). His research covers early number development, creativity
in learning mathematics, working on video with teachers and links between
mathematics education and sustainability education. His latest book, Engaging
in School Mathematics was published by Routledge in 2015.
David Corfield is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of
Kent. He works in the philosophy of science and mathematics and is a co-​
director of the Centre for Reasoning at Kent. He is one of the three owners of
the blog The n-​category Café, where the implications for philosophy, mathematics
and physics of the new language of higher-​dimensional category theory are
discussed. In 2007, Corfield published Why Do People Get Ill? (co-​authored with
Darian Leader), which aims to revive interest in the psychosomatic approach to
medicine.
Brent Davis is Professor and Distinguished Research Chair in Mathematics
Education in the Faculty of Education at the University of Calgary. He is the
author of two books on pedagogy and co-​author of three books on learning,
teaching and research. He has served as editor of For the Learning of Mathematics
(2008–​2010), co-​editor of JCT: Journal of Curriculum Theorizing (1995–​1999),
and founding co-​editor of Complicity: An International Journal of Complexity
and Education (2004–​2007).
Simon B. Duffy received a PhD in Philosophy from the University of
Sydney in 2003 after a Diplôme d’Etudes Approfondies (MPhil equivalent) in
Philosophy from the Université de Paris X-​Nanterre (1999). He has taught at
the University of Sydney, the University of New South Wales and the University
of Queensland, where he was a postdoctoral fellow in Philosophy at the Centre
for the History of European Discourses. Dr Duffy is the author of Deleuze
and the History of Mathematics: In Defense of the New (2013) and The Logic
of Expression: Quality, Quantity and Intensity in Spinoza, Hegel and Deleuze
(2006). He is editor of Virtual Mathematics: The Logic of Difference (2006),
and co-​editor with Sean Bowden of Badiou and Philosophy (2012). He is also
translator of Albert Lautman’s Mathematics, Ideas and the Physical Real (2011).
Elizabeth de Freitas is a professor at the Education and Social Research
Institute at Manchester Metropolitan University. She is the co-​ author
of Mathematics and the Body: Material Entanglements in the Classroom
(Cambridge University Press, 2014) and Alternative Theoretical Frameworks for
Mathematics Education Research: Theory meets Data (2016). Her work focuses
on the philosophy and history of mathematics and its implications for theories
xi

Notes on Contributors xi

of learning and pedagogy. She is an associate editor of the journal Educational

Studies in Mathematics.
Michael Harris is a professor of mathematics at the Université de Paris
Diderot and Columbia University. He is the author or co-​author of more than
seventy mathematical books and articles and has received a number of prizes,
including the Clay Research Award, which he shared in 2007 with Richard
Taylor. His most recent book is Mathematics without Apologies: Portrait of a
Problematic Vocation (2014).

Juliette Kennedy is Professor of Mathematics at the University of Helsinki.

Her research interests include set theory and set-​ theoretic model theory,
foundations and philosophy of mathematics, history of logic and aesthetics
and art history. She has published several books including, most recently,
Interpreting Gödel: Critical Essays (2014). She also co-​organised the Simplicity,
Ideals of Practice in Mathematics and the Arts conference in New York.

Heather Mendick is a sociologist and a former mathematics teacher who

currently works as a freelance academic. She is the author of Masculinities in
Mathematics (2006), the co-​author of Urban Youth and Schooling (2010) and
the co-​editor of Mathematical Relationships in Education (2009) and Debates
in Mathematics Education (2014). Her most recent research project focused on
the role of celebrity in young people’s classed and gendered aspirations and was
funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (www.celebyouth.org).
She tweets about work, politics, darts and pop culture @helensclegel.

Ricardo Nemirovsky is Professor at Manchester Metropolitan University

and a faculty member of the Education and Social Research Institute. Dr.
Nemirovsky’s research focuses on informal STEM education, museum
pedagogy and embodied cognition. He has acted as PI on a number of National
Science Foundation grants, including projects focusing on art- science museum
collaborations. He has designed numerous interactive tools and manipulatives
for mathematics learning and is the author of many seminal articles pertaining
to mathematics and cognition, such as the co-authored Mathematical
Imagination and Embodied Cognition (2009).

Reviel Netz is the Patrick Suppes Professor of Greek Mathematics and

Astronomy at the Department of Classics, Stanford University. He has written
widely on Greek mathematics, and among his books are The Shaping of Deduction
in Greek Mathematics: A Study in Cognitive History (Cambridge University Press,
1999) and The Archimedes Palimpsest (co-​edited with W. Noel., 2011).
newgenprepdf

xii

xii Notes on Contributors

David Pimm is Professor Emeritus at the University of Alberta. He is the

author of Speaking Mathematically (1987) and Symbols and Meanings in School
Mathematics (1995) and a co-​author of Developing Essential Understanding of
Geometry (2012). He is a former editor of the journal For the Learning of
Mathematics (1997–2003) and has written extensively on mathematics and
mathematics education, drawing on both the history and the philosophy of
mathematics.
Arkady Plotnitsky is Professor of English and Theory and Cultural
Studies, director of the Theory and Cultural Studies Program and co-​director
of the Philosophy and Literature Program at Purdue University. He earned
his PhD in comparative literature and literary theory from the University of
Pennsylvania and his MSc in mathematics from the Leningrad (St. Petersburg)
State University in Russia. He has published several books including Niels Bohr
and Complementarity: An Introduction (2012), Epistemology and Probability:
Bohr, Heisenberg, Schrödinger, and the Nature of Quantum-​Theoretical Thinking
(2009) and Complementarity: Anti-​Epistemology after Bohr and Derrida (1994).
Wolff-​M ichael Roth is Lansdowne Professor of Applied Cognitive
Science at the University of Victoria. He conducts research on how people
across their lifespan know and learn mathematics and science. He is a Fellow
of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American
Educational Research Association (AERA) and the British Society. He received
a Significant Contribution award from AERA and an Honorary Doctorate from
the University of Ioannina, Greece.
Nathalie Sinclair is a professor in the Faculty of Education, an associate
member in the Department of Mathematics and the Canada Research Chair
in Tangible Mathematics Learning at Simon Fraser University. She is also the
editor of Digital Experiences in Mathematics Education. She is the author of
Mathematics and Beauty: Aesthetic Approaches to Teaching Children (2006),
and co-​author of Mathematics and the Body: Material Entanglements in the
Classroom (Cambridge University Press, 2014) and Developing Essential
Understanding of Geometry (2012), among other books.
1

Introduction

Responding to widespread interest within cultural studies and social

inquiry, this book takes up the question of what a mathematical concept is,
using a variety of vanguard theories in the humanities and posthumanities.
Tapping into historical, philosophical, mathematical, sociological and psy-
chological perspectives, each chapter explores the question of how mathe-
matics comes to matter. Of interest to scholars across the usual disciplinary
divides, this book tracks mathematics as a cultural and material activ-
ity. Unlike other books in this area, this book is highly interdisciplinary,
devoted to exploring the ontology of mathematics as it plays out in empiri-
cal contexts, offering readers a diverse set of crisp and concise chapters.
The framing of the titular question is meant to be simple and direct, but
each chapter unpacks this question in various ways, modifying or altering
it as need be. Authors develop such variations as:
1. When does a mathematical concept become a mathematical concept?
2. What is the relationship between mathematical concepts, discourse
and the material world?
3. How might alternative ontologies of mathematics be at work at this
historical moment?
4. How do our theories of cognition and learning convey particular
assumptions about the nature of mathematical concepts?
5. How might we theorize processes of mathematical abstraction and
formalisation?
6. What is the role of diagrams, symbols and gestures in making math-
ematical concepts?
7. How do mathematical concepts inform particular ideological positions?
The authors take up these questions using tools from philosophy, anthropo­
logy, sociology, history, discursive psychology and other fields, provoking

1
2

2 Introduction

readers to interrogate their assumptions about the nature of mathematical

concepts. Thus, the book presents a balance of chapters, diverse in their appli-
cation but unified in their aim of exploring the central question. Each chapter
examines in some detail case studies and examples, be they historical or situ-
ated in contemporary practice and public life. Each author explores the his-
torical and situated ways that mathematical concepts come to be valued. Such
focus allows for a powerful investigation into how mathematical concepts oper-
ate on various material planes, making the book an important contribution to
recent debates about the nature of mathematics, cognition and learning theory.
In offering a set of diverse and operational approaches to rethinking the nature
of mathematics, we hope that this book will have far-​reaching impact across the
social sciences and the humanities. Authors delve into particular mathematical
habits –​creative diagramming, tracking invariants, structural mappings, mat­
erial agency, interdisciplinary coverings –​in order to explore the many different
ways that mathematical concepts come to populate our world.

The Context for This Book:

Philosophy and Cognition
This book springs from our desire to pursue a cultural studies of mathemat-
ics that incorporates philosophy, history, sociology, and learning theory. We
conceived this book as a collection of essays exploring and in some sense
reclaiming a canonical question –​what is a mathematical concept? –​from
the philosophy of mathematics. Authors take up this question innovatively,
tapping into new theory to examine contemporary mathematics and cur-
rent contexts. For those unfamiliar with the philosophy of mathematics,
this section briefly recounts how this canonical question was typically
addressed in the past. The ontology of concepts has long been a central
concern for philosophers, and many of these philosophers considered the
mathematical concept as an exemplary case for their investigations. The
conventional starting point has tended to be framed as a dichotomy: Do
mathematical concepts exist inside or outside the mind? From this starting
point, further binaries are encountered: If concepts exist outside the mind,
are they corporeal or incorporeal? If they are corporeal, do they exist in the
things that are perceptible by the senses or are they separate (or indepen-
dent) from them? Bostock (2009) suggests that philosophers have typically
taken three positions in relation to such questions: cognitive, realist and
nominalist.1 These conventional responses have dominated the philosophy

1
We have changed Bostock’s term “conceptualist” to “cognitive” better to name its focus on
mental concepts, and to avoid any confusion with how the term is used in our book.
3

Introduction 3

of mathematics in previous centuries, and have become somewhat ossified

in their characterization. This book charts entirely new territory, and yet
for the sake of context it is worth describing very briefly these three schools
of thought, and tracing their influence on twentieth-century constructiv-
ist theories of learning. This will set the stage for the post-​constructivist
approaches that are used in this book.
The cognitive approach claims that concepts exist in the mind and are
created by the mind. Descartes, Locke and Kant, to some degree, might be
considered to be in this camp. According to some variants of the cognitive
approach, humans create universal, matter-​independent concepts based on
sense perception, while other variants claim that concepts are innate and
do not require perceptual experience. In either case, concepts are treated
as mental images or language-​like entities. The second group of Bostock’s
philosophers, the realists (e.g., Plato, Frege and Gödel), claim that math-
ematical concepts exist outside the mind and are independent of all human
thought, while the third group, the nominalists, claim that they do not exist
at all, and are simply symbols or fictions.
Of course such sorting of philosophers into simplistic positions ignores
the complexity of their thought, but it might help some readers, who are
unfamiliar with the philosophy of mathematics, appreciate the radically
divergent approaches developed in this book. Moreover, it is important to
note how particular ideas from this tradition –​such as Kant’s theory that
mathematical statements are “synthetic a priori” –​have saturated many
later developments in the philosophy of mathematics, seeping into the
realist and nominalist camps as well. Brown (2008) indicates that Frege
embraced Kant’s view on geometry, Hilbert embraced Kant’s view on arith-
metic and even Russell can be characterized as Kantian in some crucial
respects.
One might also argue that Kant’s theory of mathematical truth has satu-
rated theories of learning and has become full ​fledged in cognitive psy-
chology and its dominant image of learning as that which entails acquiring
a set of cognitive ‘schemas’. Constructivist theories of learning, in which
concepts are constructed rather than acquired, also tend to frame the con-
structed concept as a mental image. According to this approach, student
capacity for developing mathematical concepts is based in part on induc-
tively generalising from engagements with material objects and discourse.
A constructivist approach to concept formation tends to centre on the epis-
temic subject who synthesizes and subsumes these diverse materials and
social encounters under one cognitive concept. Accordingly, concepts are
treated as abstractions that ultimately transcend the messy world of hands,
eyes, matter and others.
4

4 Introduction

Constructivist theories of concept formation find their usual source in

the work of either Piaget or Vygotsky. In the former case, Piaget’s notion
of reflective abstraction has been used to describe what it means to learn
or develop a concept. Piaget spoke of four different types of abstractions,
but the notion of reflective abstraction that was adopted by many educa-
tion researchers involves the dual process of projection (borrowing exist-
ing knowledge from a preceding level of thought to use at a higher level)
and conscious reorganization of thought into a new structure (becoming
aware of what has been abstracted in that projection). For Piaget, reflec-
tive abstraction was the mechanism through which all mathematical struc-
tures were constructed. In his genetic epistemology approach, he broke
with existing theories of concept development found both in philosophy
and psychology because he based his analyses on empirical observations of
children’s activity. For example, in the case of number, Piaget combined the
relational and classificatory concepts of number, which had been seen as
incommensurable by philosophers at the time (Brainerd, 1979). This focus
on the mathematical activity of non-​experts introduced important insights
that philosophers had overlooked. On the other hand, researchers today
who follow in the Piagetian tradition (see, for example, Simon et al., 2016)
tend to pay little attention to philosophical considerations of particular
mathematical concepts, focusing exclusively on the trajectories of particu-
lar children working on particular tasks.
For Vygotsky, concept formation was goal-​oriented and entirely social: “A
concept emerges and takes shape in the course of a complex operation aimed
at the solution of some problem” (1934, p. 54); “A concept is not an isolated,
ossified, and changeless formation” (Vygotsky, p. 98). Vygotsky saw concept
formation as necessarily being mediated by signs (principally language and
material tools); for instance, he argued that language is the means by which
a learner focuses attention and makes distinctions within the environment,
distinctions that can be analysed and synthesized. As with Piaget, Vygotsky
insisted that concepts could not be taught directly, and that concept for-
mation was a long and complex process. Whereas spontaneous concepts
could be developed from direct experience of the world through induc-
tion, scientific concepts develop through deduction and require exposure
(through school, for example) to abstract cultural knowledge and different
forms of reasoning. Thus, one way of characterizing the difference between
Piaget and Vygotsky is that for the former, reflective abstractions begin with
the actions of the individual and are then shared out in the social realm,
while for the latter, scientific concepts begin in the social realm and are
internalized by the individual. Researchers working through a Vygotskian
5

Introduction 5

perspective today focus strongly on the role that language and tools play in
learners’ concept formation, as well as on the teacher actions that support
the process of internalization (see, for example, Mariotti, 2013).
The tendency for researchers influenced by both Piaget and Vygotsky
to focus almost exclusively on the psychological nature of concepts may
account for DiSessa and Sherin’s (1998) critique of current educational
work on concepts. In their attempt to formalise “conceptual change”, they
note that one of the main difficulties in most accounts is “the failure to
unpack what ‘the very concepts’ are in sufficiently rigorous terms” (p. 1158).
This frustration might stem in part from the fact that researchers cannot see
the schemes or structures that are posited by Piaget’s account of reflective
abstraction, or even the process of internalisation described by Vygotsky.
In the context of education research, concepts are often distinguished
from memorized facts and procedures, and often qualified in terms of mis-
conceptions and protoconceptions. Curriculum policy advocates for the
importance of conceptual understanding, and typically stipulates which
mathematical concepts are most important in teaching and learning. But
this kind of listing of key concepts offers little insight into the specific nature
of mathematical concepts and the material-historical processes associated
with them.
Recent developments in post-​ constructivist learning theories have
shown how concepts are performed, enacted or produced in gestures and
other material activities (Davis, 2008; Hall & Nemirovsky, 2011; Radford,
2003; Roth, 2010). This new theoretical shift draws attention to how con-
cepts are formed in the activity itself rather than in the rational cognitive
act of synthesizing (Brown, 2011; Tall, 2011). This work reflects a paradig-
matic shift in learning theory, driven in large part by offshoots of contem-
porary phenomenology, better to address the role of the body in coming to
know mathematics.
There are yet further developments on this front, developments that
build on the phenomenological tradition, and diverge from it in significant
ways. For instance, Deleuze and Guattari (1994), whose work is cited often
in this book, reanimate the concept as part of their philosophy of imma-
nence. They propose a “pedagogy of the concept”, by which concepts are to
be treated as creative devices for carving up matter, rather than pure forms
subject only to recognition. This pedagogy of the concept aims to encoun-
ter and engage with the conceptual on the material plane; a concept brings
with it an entire “plane of immanence” (Cutler & MacKenzie, 2011, p. 64).
For Stengers (2005), Deleuze’s pedagogy is about learning “the ‘taste’ of con-
cepts, being modified by the encounter with concepts” (p. 162). de Freitas
6

6 Introduction

and Sinclair (2014) have developed this post-​humanist approach to concept

formation, arguing that learning is about encountering the mobility and
indeterminacy of concepts.
This book takes up these recent developments to explore new ontolo-
gies of mathematics and pushes against all-​too-​easy dualisms between mat-
ter and meaning. It does so by taking a broad view of concepts to include
their historical and cultural dimensions, their trajectories in and through
classrooms and their potentially changing nature within contemporary
mathematics. The chapters dig deep into mathematical practice and cul-
ture, troubling conventional approaches and their constructivist offspring.
Our hope is that this book contributes to the philosophy of mathematics
(how does mathematics evolve as a discipline? How are concepts formed
and shared?), as well as cultural studies of mathematics (How do math-
ematical concepts format worldviews? How do they participate in the cre-
ation of political and social discourse?). We also hope that the book triggers
discussions about significant questions within mathematics education,
such as: How might learning theories change if we view concepts as gen-
erative of new space​time configurations rather than timeless, determinate
and immovable? What happens to curriculum when we treat concepts as
material assemblages, temporally evolving and vibrating with potentiality?

Themes and Chapters

The first two chapters are by Michael J. Barany and Reviel Netz, respectively,
who each provide some more historical context (and critique) of theories of
mathematical concept construction. Barany engages in some long-​standing
considerations of the epistemological status of mathematical concepts, with
a particular interest in the principle of meaning finitism, which emerged
from sociology of scientific knowledge (SSK) perspectives that gained cur-
rency in the 1970s. This perspective stresses the contingent human aspects
of mathematical knowledge, particularly through the activities of labelling
and classifying. Barany uses Lakatos’ account of the development of the
concept of polyhedron to exemplify a “meaning finitism” account of math-
ematics. Rather than focus on more ontological debates about the status
of simple objects (numbers, shapes), Barany focuses on how mathematical
concepts are used and revised over time.
Netz’s chapter raises the question of what it means for mathematics to be
conceptual, especially in the context of historical situations. He describes
many claims that have been made about whether or not certain cultures
possessed a particular mathematical concept. He highlights two ways in
7

Introduction 7

which such claims might be misleading. The first relates to what we might
call frequency of use. Netz shows several examples of a concept existing in
a certain culture without it becoming widespread or frequently used. The
second, perhaps more interesting to mathematicians, relates to conceptual
hierarchy. By showing persuasively how Archimedes used the concept of
actual infinity, Netz troubles common assumptions that the concept of
actual infinity depends on the concept of set. As Barany’s meaning finitism
would make evident, the particular ways in which knowledge is classified
(ordered, related) is highly contingent and cannot be assumed to play out
in the same way in different historical periods and different geographical
locations. Indeed, Netz highlights how different mathematical practices give
rise to different concepts.
The next two chapters continue to look at the material practices of math-
ematical activity, exploring how mathematical concepts live through various
media. Juliette Kennedy examines the role of visualization and diagramming
in mathematics, and asks whether some mathematical concepts are irreduc-
ibly visual. She focuses on the role of these informal “co-​exact” characteris-
tics of mathematical drawing for the part they play in logical inference, first
tracking the historical separation of the visual from the logical. The chapter
by Elizabeth de Freitas and Nathalie Sinclair attends to the historical division
between logic and mathematics in a related way, looking at the concept of the
mathematical continuum, to show that number and line are mathematical
concepts which are the source of persistent philosophical questions about
space, time and mobility. Just as Kennedy talks about the “bidirectionality”
of mathematical practice (between body and symbol) and the “ambivalence”
entailed in mathematical positioning, de Freitas and Sinclair suggest that
mathematical concepts are always rumbling beneath the apparent foun-
dations of mathematical truth. They draw on the ideas of Gilles Châtelet
and Ian Hacking to show how concepts thrive through material media and
historical material arrangements. These two chapters challenge readers to
reconsider the way that proof and reasoning is at play in mathematics.
Kennedy first distinguishes between drawings that are directly consti-
tutive of a mathematical proof and others that are informal, “incidental”
aspects of mathematical activity, discussing how both kinds function fruit-
fully in mathematics. She discusses “world-​involving inference” and logical
inference, seeking a middle synthetic ground where mixtures of reason-
ing operate. Drawing on the reflections of the architect Juhani Pallasmaa
about “the thinking hand”, Kennedy argues that the manual activity of
mathematical drawing must be considered as we ask the question: What
is a mathematical concept? Mathematicians move around a mathematical
8

8 Introduction

diagram much like one might move around a building, and it is through
this habitation and spatial practice that the concepts become known. This
chapter also links to that by Nemirovsky, who describes how one comes to
inhabit a concept over time, through habitual carving out of its contour and
meaning.
The chapter by de Freitas and Sinclair continues the theme that Kennedy
opens, regarding the relationship between the logical and the mathematical.
They cite Hacking (2014), who argues that the connection between symbolic
logic and mathematics “simply did not exist” until the logicist movement
of the nineteenth century (advocated by Frege, above all), which aimed to
reduce mathematics to logic, and replaced Aristotelian logic with what was
termed “symbolic logic” (p. 137). This chapter proposes the term “virtual”
to describe the indeterminate dimension in matter that literally destabi-
lizes the rigidity of extension. They suggest that concepts such as line, point
and circle can be conceived using a genetic definition that emphasizes the
dynamic and mobile aspects of mathematical concepts. Concepts –​such
as squareness, fiveness, etc. –​thus retain the trace of the movement of the
eye, hand and thinking body. This chapter is linked to the one by Netz, as
they both present images of mathematical practice as an applied or prac-
tical affair, grounded in material conditions and experiments rather than
exclusive appeals to logic.
Chapters by Arkady Plotnitsky and Simon Duffy explore the ways in
which mathematical concepts spring from and sustain rich problem spaces.
They both draw on the powerful ideas of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari
to develop a theory of mathematical concepts, and then show its relevance
to other discourses. Deleuze, in particular, offered deep insights into the
history of mathematics, tapping particular ideas –​from Galois, Riemann,
Poincaré, Lautman and others –​to rethink the relationship between con-
cepts and problems. We see in Plotnitsky and Duffy’s chapters a theoreti-
cal move that explores the speculative position of a “mathesis universalis”
(Deleuze, 1994, p. 181), but not one that posits a definite system of math-
ematical laws at the base of nature. Rather, these two chapters delve into
the mathematical concept as that which operates through a rich dynamic
ontology of problems that are in some way shared with other discourses
and contexts.
Plotnitsky explores the contributions of Bernhardt Riemann around
non-​Euclidean geometry, also drawing on the insights of Deleuze. Riemann’s
work is known as a conceptual rather than axiomatic approach to exploring
non-​Euclidean geometries. Plotnitsky uses the work of Riemann to show
that a mathematical concept (1) emerges from the co-operative confrontation
9

Introduction 9

between mathematical thought and chaos; (2) is multi-​component; (3) is

related to or is a problem; and (4) has a history. Plotnitsky argues that mathe-
matical concepts are not simply referents or functional objects, but that they
tap into a “plane of immanence”, which is a Deleuzian term that describes
the vibrant virtual realm of potentiality in the world. The plane of imma-
nence is the plane of the movement of philosophical thought that gives rise
to philosophical concepts, but Plotnitsky argues that mathematics also cre-
atively operates through this plane of immanence. In particular, Plotnitsky
shows how mathematical concerns regarding the distinction between dis-
crete and continuous manifolds are philosophical in the Deleuzian sense.
Thus, Plotnitsky shows that mathematics as much as philosophy engages
with “chaos” by creating planes of immanence and concepts. He argues that
creative exact mathematical and scientific thought is defined by planes of
immanence and invention of exact concepts, the architecture of which is
analogous to that of philosophical concepts in Deleuze and Guattari’s sense.
Duffy shows how a practice of mathematical problems –​using the exam-
ples of the problem of solving the quintic and the problem of the diagram-
matic representation of essential singularities –​operates as the engine of
mathematical invention, such that the emergent “solutions” are clusters of
concepts that carry with them the problem space from which they emerged.
In other words, following Lautman, concepts are inherently problematic
and carry with them the force of the problem –​indeed, this force animates
them. Duffy shows how Deleuze is ultimately interested in how this theory
of mathematical problems offers even broader significance because it can
be deployed as a way of studying problems and concepts in other discourses,
or fields and contexts. In particular, Duffy shows how Deleuze’s work in his
seminal Difference and repetition (1994) deploys the conceptual space of the
early mathematical calculus to rethink the nature of perception. It is not,
however, that Deleuze privileges the discourse of mathematics over others
in some absolute sense, but rather that it offers distinctive insights (just as
any other might) into our shared ontology.
The chapters by David Corfield and Michael Harris both consider the
emergence of new concepts in mathematics, in a contemporary setting.
Corfield’s chapter is concerned with homotopy type theory while Harris
traces the recent emergence of the perfectoid. Corfield’s interest in homo-
topy type theory stems from the way it exemplifies the vertical unity of
mathematics. For Harris, the focus is on how the concept of the perfectoid
came to be seen as “the right” concept within the mathematics commu-
nity –​a story he offers as a participant-​observer. Both authors highlight
how mathematical concepts are tied up in axiological concerns. While
10

10 Introduction

Harris refuses to offer criteria for what makes a concept “good”, he draws
attention to the many social and historical factors –​such as the connection
to Grothendieck and perhaps even the endearing personality of Scholze –​
that converged to make the perfectoid the ‘right’ concept for solving a set of
diverse mathematical problems. He chronicles the way in which the perfec-
toid concept was put to work extensively by Scholze and others, almost like
a kind of mutant offspring of current theories. This suggests that the appli-
cability of a concept (where the application is across mathematics, rather
than outside of mathematics), is a highly generative process whereby new
practices emerge that change the entire field.
Similarly, Corfield provides a compelling argument for the “goodness”
of homotopy type theory, which has developed a strong footing in the past
decade. Corfield describes how this theory, and type theory more generally,
exploits the vertical unity of mathematics. Such unity entails consistency
demands, but perhaps also points to uncharted pedagogical terrain. There
are some important nuances to keep in mind, which Corfield highlights in his
discussion of Mark Wilson’s insistence on the “wandering” nature of concepts
and his warning that “hazy holism” can often misleadingly lead us to believe
in the unity of concepts, which are more often than not “patched together
from varied parts” (p. 129). The very practice of patching becomes pivotal to
Corfield’s considerations of the ‘spatial’ nature of homotopy type theory.
Thus we might also see the vertical unity as arising from a patching together
of different kinds of mathematical practices, much as we saw in Harris’ chap-
ter. That strong analogies can be seen across basic arithmetic and homotopy
is convincingly and carefully shown by Corfield, but one look at the syntactic
complexity required to “express” addition or inverse in homotopy type theory
is enough to remind us that these are not the same concepts. We are reminded
of Thurston’s (1994) description of the different ways of thinking about the
derivative. While the differences may “start to evaporate as soon as the mental
concepts are translated into precise, formal and explicit definitions” (p. 3), they
are much more real in the particular contexts in which they are actually used.
Staying close to particular practices –​rather than erasing those differences
within a reductive set theory –​allows Corfield to seek out other important
“unities” across other concepts, such as formal and concrete duality.
The notion of vertical unity seems to us an interesting one for math-
ematics education, for how it troubles conventions about developmental
conceptual change and curriculum. School mathematics has long been
considered an edifice whose stairway must be climbed one step at a time.
Vertical unity brings about some different imagery: express elevators,
the possibility of starting at the penthouse of homotopy type theory, a
11

Introduction 11

confused and more wandering landscape of conceptual life. This chapter

links to that of Reviel Netz, which also troubles conventional assump-
tions about which concepts come ‘before’ others.
Three chapters (Yasmine Abtahi and Richard Barwell; Tony Brown;
Heather Mendick) delve into the public culture of mathematical concepts,
in different ways, by tracking the way that concepts are used outside of
academic mathematics. Mendick takes a post-modern perspective to ask
what mathematical concepts do in popular culture (‘queering’ mathemat-
ical concepts in the process) in order to ask what they might do differ-
ently in the future. The chapter takes the form of a mathematical-​concept
archive. In one part of the archive, Mendick looks at school student
Twitter responses to a recent examination in the United Kingdom to illus-
trate their refusal to dissociate mathematical concepts from the contexts
in which questions are placed or posed. Mendick ends her chapter with a
series of dichotomies that she has hoped to disrupt and that include one
highlighted by Barwell and Abtabi, but which are here expressed as con-
ceptual understanding vs procedural understanding. Both chapters are
therefore working against binaries that can appear natural and inevitable
but are never innocent in that they come to be used to separate, evaluate
and segregate groups of students.
Barwell and Abtahi investigate how the word “concept” is used in rela-
tion to Canadian media reports about mathematics education, drawing on
a corpus of 53 articles. The side-​stepping of ontological questions about
how concepts are coupled to the material world is a deliberate position
arising from the discursive psychology perspective of their work. They dis-
cover that the phrase ‘mathematical concept’ gets associated with ‘discov-
ery learning’, framing concept acquisition as hard or difficult, compared
with the simplicity of back-​to-​basics routines. Discovery learning and
concepts are associated with approaches to teaching that are less success-
ful when contrasted to what are characterised as older and simpler proce-
dure-​based methods. The newspaper reports therefore set up a dichotomy
with concepts (discovery learning, difficulty, confusion) on one side and
routines (back-​to-​basics teaching, simplicity, clarity) on the other.
The ideological implications of the binaries that inform our thinking
and action is taken up in the chapter by Brown, who investigates the pro-
duction and commodification of mathematical concepts. Ideology is at play
in, for example, the determination of mathematical truth and in the assess-
ment structures that surround the production of school mathematics. We
do not usually notice the ideology at play in relation to mathematical con-
cepts and yet, Brown argues, mathematics often figures prominently in the
12

12 Introduction

making of our very subjectivity. Brown draws on the insights of Jacques

Lacan to argue that through participating in rituals (for example, the ritual
of school mathematics assessment) we inadvertently materialise our own
belief in the ideological state apparatus associated with those mathematical
rituals. And yet we can still encounter spaces ‘beyond’, as Brown contends
that mathematical thought will always exceed its commodified manifesta-
tions, perhaps echoing the way that students in Mendick’s chapter refuse to
allow their encounter with mathematics to be stripped of context.
Chapters by Alf Coles and Wolff-Michael Roth, in different ways and
with differing emphases, deal with a paradox of learning that has been rec-
ognised since antiquity. Plato (Meno, 80d) asks: if learning is the recognition
of the new, how is this ever possible, since to recognise something I need
to know what I am looking for? In a modern take, Anna Sfard referred to
essentially the same paradox: to participate in a discourse on an object, you
need to have already constructed this object, but the only way to construct
an object is to participate in the discourse about it (see Sfard, 2013). Roth
expresses the paradox in language linked to his background in cultural, his-
torical activity theory: “[b]‌ut how would an individual, who does not already
know what is cultural about objects encountered sequentially come to abstract
precisely those features that make some of the objects members of a cultural
concept while excluding others?” (p. 223, italics in the original). Coles cites
visual theory to pose the paradox in relation to perception, suggesting we
need abstract structures to make sense of perception, and we need percep-
tion to build abstract structures.
Coles also uses the word “abstract” in his framing, but in his chapter the
term is taken to mean attention to relations, rather than attention to objects.
However, Coles suggests it is probable that any relation can be seen as an
object and any object seen as a relation –​we can therefore become aware
of our choice (although typically we do not notice) in engaging in object-​
oriented or relational thinking. Coles suggests learning mathematics can
become fast, imaginative and engaging if we introduce concepts, from the
very beginning, as relations. Four examples are given of how this could be
done, with the most detailed example being early number –​and the sugges-
tion is made that curriculum could be taught in a relational manner.
Although Roth uses the word “abstract” in posing the paradox, his solu-
tion is decidedly concrete. Roth puts forward the “documentary method”
as a way of explaining how we come to create new distinctions and new
categories, and he exemplifies this with an empirical classroom example.
According to the documentary method, we learn concepts that allow us
to make distinctions in the world, without necessarily needing to uncover
13

Introduction 13

“common properties”. A concept remains forever a class of concrete mani-

festations. With familiarity we are able to identify class membership “at a
glance”, but this does not mean we have erased all distinctive features from
all instances of that class. Classes of objects become one if they are treated
as such.
The next two chapters, by Brent Davis and Ricardo Nemirovsky, both
provide expansive views of mathematical concept, seeking in some ways to
free it from its static straightjacket. Davis draws on the historical connec-
tion between ideas and species –​which were often seen as synonymous in
pre-​evolutionary science –​to investigate how mathematical concepts might
be studied through the lens of contemporary biology, where species are con-
tingent, situated and volatile. Davis asks: What if concepts were seen to be
more like species? He uses explorations into mimetics, complexity science
and embodied cognition to propose that concepts are “memeplexes”, with a
life form and a networked living body that evolves in complex ways. In the
context of mathematics education, Davis suggests that embracing concepts as
species may compel a different attitude towards student understanding and
teacher knowledge. If a concept is a living form, it makes little sense to speak
of “acquiring” it; instead, Davis invites us to consider how students and teach-
ers might be seen as propagators of ideas.
Davis’ inquiry into species, and especially the associations suggested by
embodied cognition in which bodies are the media of concepts, segues nicely
into Nemirovsky’s chapter, which considers the more anthropological per-
spective of inhabiting mathematical concepts. Nemirovsky begins by evoking
the classical, arboreal image of the Aristotelian tree diagram of nodes in which
concepts are seen as classes of entities (humans, triangles). He critiques this
image on two grounds: its static presentation of concept as fixed within the
tree, and its failure to account for the cultural and political forces that create
the differences out of which the nodes are arranged. Like Davis, Nemirovsky
draws on images from biology –​of growth and decay –​to re-imagine the
mathematical concept. He describes the way concepts might be seen to grow
and decay through affect and the virtual, both of which can be seen as exceed-
ing any fixed, intrinsic determination. He exemplifies this process through the
concept of number, with a particular focus on Cantor’s work and its reception
by Frege. Nemirovsky shows how the historical development of transfinite
numbers altered the way we inhabit the concept of number. Sidestepping the
usual discovery/invention debate, he suggests that “inhabiting” captures the
experience of working with mathematical concepts.
In the final chapter, David Pimm provides a commentary of sorts, read-
ing across the chapters and highlighting some notable themes. He reflects
14

14 Introduction

on various linguistic features evoked in relation to mathematical concepts,

both in terms of how concepts are named and renamed, as well as in rela-
tion to their potential metaphorical, poetic and diagrammatic qualities.
Drawing on an eclectic range of sources (such as poetry, philosophy and
psychoanalysis), he then offers seventeen evocative assertions about con-
cepts that play off particular passages found in the preceding chapters.

On Reading the Book

When we first planned this book, we hoped to be able to suggest multiple
pathways through the book, inspired by Julio Cortazar’s Hopscotch. In the
end, we paired up the chapters (and in one case, tripled them up) based on
their tangled threaded ideas, but instead of naming the groups according
to a theme, we decided to offer images for each group –​which were kindly
provided by friends and artists –​that captured something about the duo or
trio of chapters. We hope that the images work generatively, perhaps lead-
ing the reader to create connections of their own, both within each duo/​
trio and across the whole book. We thank David Pimm for so expertly and
creatively offering his own set of connections, in the afterword that follows
all the chapters, which may incite some readers to consume the book in an
order different than the one we have offered.
We close by thanking the contributors and attendees of the American
Education Research Association roundtable, where the idea for this book
was born in 2014. We would also like to thank the Coles family (Niki, Iona,
Arthur and Iris) for hosting us over a long weekend in Bristol as we gath-
ered these chapters together and wrote this introduction.

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its pledges to grant statehood to the territories of Arizona,
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{656}

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Chinese exclusion law and its application to the same classes
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all nations, entangling alliances with none.' We approve this
wholesome doctrine and earnestly protest against the
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politics, including the diplomacy of Europe and the intrigue
and land-grabbing in Asia, and we especially condemn the
ill-concealed Republican alliance with England, which must
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entire American nation, except its Republican officeholders,
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is at stake, and that the decision now to be rendered will
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blessed privileges of free government which have made the
United States great, prosperous and honored, we earnestly ask
for the foregoing declaration of principles the hearty support
of the liberty-loving American people, regardless of previous
party affiliations."

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1900.

Silver Republican Platform and Nominations.

The Republicans who broke from their party in 1896 on the

silver question, and supported Mr. Bryan for the presidency,
were still in affiliation with him and his party, but
preserving a distinct organization, assuming the name of
Lincoln Republicans. Simultaneously with that of the Democrats
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Bryan as their candidate for President. The nomination for
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assembled, declare these as our principles and invite the
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it to be our intention to lend our efforts to the repeal of
this currency law, which not only repudiates the ancient and
time-honored principles of the American people before the
Constitution was adopted, but is violative of the principles
of the Constitution itself, and we shall not cease our efforts
until there has been established in its place a monetary
system based upon the free and unlimited coinage of silver and
 gold into money at the present legal ratio of 16 to 1 by the
independent action of the United States, under which system
all paper money shall be issued by the Government and all such
money coined or issued shall be a full legal tender in payment
of all debts, public and private, without exception.

{657}

"We are in favor of a graduated tax upon incomes, and if

necessary to accomplish this we favor an amendment to the
Constitution.

"We believe that United States Senators ought to be elected by

direct vote of the people, and we favor such amendment of the
Constitution and such legislation as may be necessary to that
end.

"We favor the maintenance and the extension wherever

practicable of the merit system in the public service,
appointments to be made according to fitness, competitively
ascertained, and public servants to be retained in office only
so long as shall be compatible with the efficiency of the
service.

"Combinations, trusts, and monopolies contrived and arranged

for the purpose of controlling the prices and quantity of
articles supplied to the public are unjust, unlawful, and
oppressive. Not only do these unlawful conspiracies fix the
prices of commodities in many cases, but they invade every
branch of the State and National Government with their
polluting influence and control the actions of their employés
and dependents in private life until their influence actually
imperils society and the liberty of the citizen. We declare
against them. We demand the most stringent laws for their
destruction and the most severe punishment of their promoters
and maintainers and the energetic enforcement of such laws by
the courts.
"We believe the Monroe doctrine to be sound in principle and a
wise National policy, and we demand a firm adherence thereto.
We condemn acts inconsistent with it and that tend to make us
parties to the interests and to involve us in the
controversies of European nations and to recognition by
pending treaty of the right of England to be considered in the
construction of an interoceanic canal. We declare that such
canal, when constructed, ought to be controlled by the United
States in the interests of American nations.

"We observe with anxiety and regard with disapproval the

increasing ownership of American lands by aliens and their
growing control over our international transportation, natural
resources, and public utilities. We demand legislation to
protect our public domain, our natural resources, our
franchises, and our internal commerce and to keep them free
and maintain their independence of all foreign monopolies,
institutions, and influences, and we declare our opposition to
the leasing of the public lands of the United States whereby
corporations and syndicates will be able to secure control
thereof and thus monopolize the public domain, the heritage of
the people.

"We are in favor of the principles of direct legislation. In

view of the great sacrifice made and patriotic services
rendered we are in favor of liberal pensions to deserving
soldiers, their widows, orphans, and other dependents. We
believe that enlistment and service should be accepted as
conclusive proof that the soldier was free from disease and
disability at the time of his enlistment. We condemn the
present administration of the pension laws.

"We tender to the patriotic people of the South African

Republics our sympathy and express our admiration for them in
their heroic attempts to preserve their political freedom and
maintain their national independence. We declare the
destruction of these republics and the subjugation of their
people to be a crime against civilization. We believe this
sympathy should have been voiced by the American Congress, as
was done in the case of the French, the Greeks, the
Hungarians, the Poles, the Armenians, and the Cubans, and as
the traditions of this country would have dictated. We declare
the Porto Rican Tariff law to be not only a serious but a
dangerous departure from the principles of our form of
government. We believe in a republican form of government and
are opposed to monarchy and to the whole theory of
imperialistic control.

"We believe in self-government—a government by the consent of

the governed—and are unalterably opposed to a government based
upon force. It is clear and certain that the inhabitants of
the Philippine Archipelago cannot be made citizens of the
United States without endangering our civilization. We are,
therefore, in favor of applying to the Philippine Archipelago
the principle we are solemnly and publicly pledged to observe
in the case of Cuba.

"There no longer being any necessity for collecting war taxes,

we demand the repeal of the war taxes levied to carry on the
war with Spain.

"We favor the immediate admission into the union of States the
Territories of Arizona, New Mexico, and Oklahoma.

"We demand that our nation's promises to Cuba shall be

fulfilled in every particular.

"We believe the National Government should lend every aid,

encouragement, and assistance toward the reclamation of the
arid lands of the United States, and to that end we are in
favor of a comprehensive survey thereof and an immediate
ascertainment of the water supply available for such
reclamation, and we believe it to be the duty of the General
 Government to provide for the construction of storage
reservoirs and irrigation works so that the water supply of
the arid region may be utilized to the greatest possible
extent in the interests of the people, while preserving all
rights of the State.

"Transportation is a public necessity and the means and

methods of it are matters of public concern. Railway companies
exercise a power over industries, business, and commerce which
they ought not to do, and should be made to serve the public
interests without making unreasonable charges or unjust
discriminations.

"We observe with satisfaction the growing sentiment among the

people in favor of the public ownership and operation of
public utilities.

"We are in favor of expanding our commerce in the interests of

American labor and for the benefit of all our people by every
honest and peaceful means. Our creed and our history justify
the nations of the earth in expecting that wherever the
American flag is unfurled in authority human liberty and
political liberty will be found. We protest against the
adoption of any policy that will change in the thought of the
world the meaning of our flag.

"We are opposed to the importation of Asiatic laborers in

competition with American labor, and favor a more rigid
enforcement of the laws relating thereto.

"The Silver Republican party of the United States, in the

foregoing principles, seeks to perpetuate the spirit and to
adhere to the teachings of Abraham Lincoln."

{658}

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1900.

Platform of the American League of Anti-Imperialists.

Republicans and others opposed to a policy of conquest, and to

the government of people, not as citizens, but as subjects of
the Republic of the United States, and who wished to make that
opposition distinct and emphatic in the presidential canvass,
met in convention at Indianapolis, on the 16th of August, as
the "Liberty Congress of the American League of
Anti-Imperialists." One party among them thought the best
demonstration of public opinion on this issue could be
obtained by the nomination of a third ticket; while another
and larger party deemed it expedient to indorse the candidacy
of William J. Bryan, as a pronounced opponent of the imperial
policy. The views of the latter prevailed, and the indorsement
of Mr. Bryan was carried in the convention; but many of the
former refused submission to the vote of the majority, and
subsequently held a Third Party convention at New York (see
below). The Indianapolis Declaration was as follows:

"This Liberty Congress of Anti-Imperialists recognizes a great

National crisis, which menaces the Republic, upon whose future
depends in such large measure the hope of freedom throughout
the world. For the first time in our country's history the
President has undertaken to subjugate a foreign people and to
rule them by despotic power. He has thrown the protection of
the flag over slavery and polygamy in the Sulu Islands. He has
arrogated to himself the power to impose upon the inhabitants
of the Philippines government without their consent and
taxation without representation. He is waging war upon them
for asserting the very principles for the maintenance of which
our forefathers pledged their lives, their fortunes and their
sacred honor. He claims for himself and Congress authority to
govern the territories of the United States without
constitutional restraint.

"We believe in the Declaration of Independence. Its truths,

not less self-evident to-day than when first announced by our
fathers, are of universal application and cannot be abandoned
while government by the people endures.

"We believe in the Constitution of the United States. It gives

the President and Congress certain limited powers and secures
to every man within the jurisdiction of our Government certain
essential rights. We deny that either the President or
Congress can govern any person anywhere outside the
Constitution.

"We are absolutely opposed to the policy of President

McKinley, which proposes to govern millions of men without
their consent, which in Porto Rico establishes taxation
without representation, and government by the arbitrary will
of a legislature unfettered by constitutional restraint, and
in the Philippines prosecutes a war of conquest and demands
unconditional surrender from a people who are of right free
and independent. The struggle of men for freedom has ever been
a struggle for constitutional liberty. There is no liberty if
the citizen has no right which the Legislature may not invade,
if he may be taxed by the Legislature in which he is not
represented, or if he is not protected by fundamental law
against the arbitrary action of executive power. The policy of
the President offers the inhabitants of Porto Rico, Hawaii and
the Philippines no hope of independence, no prospect of
American citizenship, no constitutional protection, no
representation in the Congress which taxes them. This is the
government of men by arbitrary power without their consent.
This is imperialism. There is no room under the free flag of
America for subjects. The President and Congress, who derive
all their powers from the Constitution, can govern no man
without regard to its limitations.

"We believe the greatest safeguard of liberty is a free press,

and we demand that the censorship in the Philippines, which
keeps from the American people the knowledge of what is done
in their name, be abolished. We are entitled to know the
truth, and we insist that the powers which the President holds
in trust for us shall not be used to suppress it.

"Because we thus believe, we oppose the reelection of Mr.

McKinley. The supreme purpose of the people in this momentous
campaign should be to stamp with their final disapproval his
attempt to grasp imperial power. A self-governing people can
have no more imperative duty than to drive from public life a
Chief Magistrate who, whether in weakness or of wicked
purpose, has used his temporary authority to subvert the
character of their government and to destroy their National
ideals.

"We, therefore, in the belief that it is essential at this

crisis for the American people again to declare their faith in
the universal application of the Declaration of Independence
and to reassert their will that their servants shall not have
or exercise any powers whatever other than those conferred by
the Constitution, earnestly make the following recommendations
to our countrymen:

"First, that, without regard to their views on minor questions

of domestic policy, they withhold their votes from Mr.
McKinley, in order to stamp with their disapproval what he has
done.

"Second, that they vote for those candidates for Congress in

their respective districts who will oppose the policy of
imperialism.

"Third, while we welcome any other method of opposing the

re-election of Mr. McKinley we advise direct support of Mr.
Bryan as the most effective means of crushing imperialism. We
are convinced of Mr. Bryan's sincerity and of his earnest
purpose to secure to the Filipinos their independence. His
position and the declarations contained in the platform of his
party on the vital issue of the campaign meet our unqualified
 approval.

"We recommend that the Executive committees of the American

Anti-Imperialist League and its allied leagues continue and
extend their organizations, preserving the independence of the
movement; and that they take the most active part possible in
the pending political campaign.

"Until now the policy which has turned the Filipinos from warm
friends to bitter enemies, which has slaughtered thousands of
them and laid waste their country, has been the policy of the
President. After the next election it becomes the policy of
every man who votes to re-elect him and who thus becomes with
him responsible for every drop of blood thereafter shed.

"In declaring that the principles of the Declaration of

Independence apply to all men, this Congress means to include
the negro race in America as well as the Filipinos. We
deprecate all efforts, whether in the South or in the North,
to deprive the negro of his rights as a citizen under the
Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United
States."

{659}

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1900.

The "Third Party" Anti-Imperialist Platform and Nominations.

The Anti-Imperialists who desired a Third Party ticket in the

field, called a convention which met in the city of New York,
September 5, and put in nomination for President and Vice
President Senator Donelson Caffery, of Louisiana, and
Archibald Murray Howe, of Massachusetts. The name "National
Party" was assumed, and its "aims and purposes" were thus
declared:

"We find our country threatened with alternative perils. On

 the one hand is a public opinion misled by organized forces of
commercialism, that have perverted a war intended by the
people to be a war of humanity into a war of conquest. On the
other is a public opinion swayed by demagogic appeals to
factional and class passions, the most fatal of diseases to a
republic. We believe that either of these influences, if
unchecked, would ultimately compass the downfall of our
country, but we also believe that neither represents the sober
conviction of our countrymen. Convinced that the extension of
the jurisdiction of the United States for the purpose of
holding foreign people as colonial dependents is an innovation
dangerous to our liberties and repugnant to the principles
upon which our Government is founded, we pledge our earnest
efforts through all constitutional means:

"First, to procure the renunciation of all imperial or

colonial pretensions with regard to foreign countries claimed
to have been acquired through or in consequence of military or
naval operations of the last two years.

"Second, we further pledge our efforts to secure a single gold

standard and a sound banking system.

"Third, to secure a public service based on merit only.

"Fourth, to secure the abolition of all corrupting special

privileges, whether under the guise of subsidies, bounties,
undeserved pensions or trust breeding tariffs."

Within a few weeks after the holding of this convention,

Senator Caffery and Mr. Howe withdrew their names from the
canvass, and it was decided to appoint electors-at-large in as
many states as possible, to receive the votes of those
supporting the movement.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1900.

Social Democratic Party Platform and Nominations.
The last distinct movement of organization for the
presidential election was that of a "Social Democratic Party,"
whose convention, at Chicago, September 29, placed Eugene V.
Debs, of Illinois, in nomination for President, and Job
Harriman, of California, for Vice President, on principles
declared as follows:

"The Social Democratic party of America declares that life,

liberty, and happiness depend upon equal political and
economic rights.

"In our economic development an industrial revolution has

taken place, the individual tool of former years having become
the social tool of the present. The individual tool was owned
by the worker, who employed himself and was master of his
product. The social tool, the machine, is owned by the
capitalist, and the worker is dependent upon him for
employment. The capitalist thus becomes the master of the
worker, and is able to appropriate to himself a large share of
the product of his labor.

"Capitalism, the private ownership of the means of production,

is responsible for the insecurity of subsistence, the poverty,
misery, and degradation of the ever-growing majority of our
people; but the same economic forces which have produced and
now intensify the capitalist system will necessitate the
adoption of Socialism, the collective ownership of the means
of production for the common good and welfare.

"The present system of social production and private ownership

is rapidly converting society into two antagonistic classes—i.
e., the capitalist class and the propertyless class. The
middle class, once the most powerful of this great nation, is
disappearing in the mill of competition. The issue is now
between the two classes first named. Our political liberty is
now of little value to the masses unless used to acquire
economic liberty. Independent political action and the
trade-union movement are the chief emancipating factors of the
working class, the one representing its political, the other
its economic wing, and both must cooperate to abolish the
capitalist system.

"Therefore, the Social Democratic party of America declares

its object to be:

"First—The organization of the working class into a political

party to conquer the public powers now controlled by
capitalists.

"Second—The abolition of wage-slavery by the establishment of

a National system of cooperative industry, based upon the
social or common ownership of the means of production and
distribution, to be administered by society in the common
interest of all its members, and the complete emancipation of
the socially useful classes from the domination of capitalism.

"The working class and all those in sympathy with their

historic mission to realize a higher civilization should sever
connection with all capitalist and reform parties and unite
with the Social Democratic party of America. The control of
political power by the Social Democratic party will be
tantamount to the abolition of all class rule. The solidarity
of labor connecting the millions of class-conscious
fellow-workers throughout the civilized world will lead to
international Socialism, the brotherhood of man.

"As steps in that direction, we make the following demands:

"First-Revision of our Federal Constitution, in order to

remove the obstacles to complete control of government by the
people irrespective of sex.
 "Second—The public ownership of all industries controlled by
monopolies, trusts, and combines.

"Third—The public ownership of all railroads, telegraphs, and

telephones; all means of transportation and communication; all
water-works, gas and electric plants, and other public
utilities.

"Fourth—The public ownership of all gold, silver, copper,

lead, iron, coal, and other mines, and all oil and gas wells.

"Fifth—The reduction of the hours of labor in proportion to

the increasing facilities of production.

{660}

"Sixth—The inauguration of a system of public works and

improvements for the employment of the unemployed, the public
credit to be utilized for that purpose.

"Seventh—Useful inventions to be free, the inventor to be

remunerated by the public.

"Eighth—Labor legislation to be National instead of local, and

international when possible.

"Ninth—National insurance of working people against

accidents, lack of employment, and want in old age.

"Tenth—Equal civil and political rights for men and women, and
the abolition of all laws discriminating against women.

"Eleventh—The adoption of the initiative and referendum,

proportional representation, and the right of recall of
representatives by the voters.

"Twelfth—Abolition of war and the introduction of

 international arbitration."

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1900.

The Canvass and Election.

The canvass preceding the election was much less excited than
that of 1896. The confusion of issues greatly lessened the
intensity with which they were discussed. Mr. Bryan again took
the field in person, travelling widely through all parts of
the country, making great numbers of speeches to immense
audiences everywhere; and Governor Roosevelt did the same on
the Republican side, to a somewhat less extent.

The election, which occurred on the 6th of November, was

conducted with the quiet order that is rarely broken at such
times in America. About fourteen millions of votes were cast,
of which, according to the returns compiled for the Tribune
Almanac,
President McKinley received 7,214,027,
and Bryan, 6,342,514.
For the Prohibition ticket, 197,112 votes were cast;
for the Socialist Labor ticket, 32,433;
for the Social Democratic ticket, 82,904;
and 78,444 votes were scuttered among other candidates.
The States carried for McKinley were:
California, giving 9 electoral votes;
Connecticut, 6;
Delaware, 3;
Illinois, 24;
Indiana, 15;
Iowa, 13;
Kansas, 10;
Maine, 6;
Maryland, 8;
Massachusetts, 15;
Michigan, 14;
Minnesota, 9;
Nebraska, 8;
New Hampshire, 4;
New Jersey, 10;
New York, 36;
North Dakota, 3;
Ohio, 23;
Oregon, 4;
Pennsylvania, 32;
Rhode Island, 4;
South Dakota, 4;
Utah, 3;
Vermont, 4;
Washington, 4;
West Virginia, 6;
Wisconsin, 12;
Wyoming, 3;

Total, 292.

For Bryan, the electoral votes of the following States

were given:
Alabama, 11;
Arkansas, 8;
Colorado, 4;
Florida, 4;
Georgia, 13;
Idaho, 3;
Kentucky, 13;
Louisiana, 8;
Mississippi, 9;
Missouri, 17;
Montana, 3;
Nevada, 3;
North Carolina, 11;
South Carolina, 9;
Tennessee, 12;
Texas, 15;
 Virginia, 12;

Total, 155.

President McKinley was re-elected by a majority of 137 votes

in the Electoral College, and by a majority of nearly half a
million of the popular vote.

" The popular vote for President shows three interesting

things:

"(1) Many men of each party abstained from voting, for the
total was only 45,132 greater than in 1896, whereas the
increase in population adds about a million to the electorate
every four years. The total vote last year was 13,970,234. Mr.
McKinley received only about 100,000 more than in 1896, and
Mr. Bryan 130,000 less. Many men in each party, then, were
dissatisfied with their candidate and platform.

"(2) Mr. Bryan's largest gains were in New England, because of

the anti-Imperialistic feeling, and in New York and New Jersey
and Illinois, because of a milder fear of financial
disturbance; and his losses were greatest in Utah, in
Colorado, and in the Pacific States, an indication of better
times and of less faith in free silver.

"(3) Twelve Southern States cast a smaller vote than in 1896,

partly because of the elimination of the Negroes, and partly
because many Gold Democrats abstained from voting."

The World's Work, February, 1901.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1900.

The Democratic candidate on "Imperialism."

The issue which ought to have been supreme in the Presidential

election, because fundamental principles of government and
lasting consequences of policy were bound up in it, but which
was unhappily confused by prevailing anxieties in the
sensitive region of commercial and industrial affairs, is more
broadly and adequately defined in the declarations of the two
leading candidates, on their formal acceptance of nominations
by the Democratic and Republican parties, than it is in the
party platforms quoted above. The first to speak was Mr.
Bryan. Responding to the committee which notified him of his
nomination, at Indianapolis, ou the 8th of August, he devoted
the greater part of his remarks to the policy of colonial
acquisition on which the government had been embarked. The
following passages are fairly representative of the view taken
by those who condemned what they termed "imperialism," in the
undertaking of the government of the American Republic to
impose its sovereignty upon the people of the Philippine
Islands, and to hold their country as a "possession:"

"When the president, supported by a practically unanimous vote

of the House and Senate, entered upon a war with Spain for the
purpose of aiding the struggling patriots of Cuba, the
country, without regard to party, applauded. Although the
Democrats realized that the administration would necessarily
gain a political advantage from the conduct of a war which in
the very nature of the case must soon end in a complete
victory, they vied with the Republicans in the support which
they gave to the President. When the war was over and the
Republican leaders began to suggest the propriety of a
colonial policy, opposition at once manifested itself.

"When the President finally laid before the Senate a treaty

which recognized the independence of Cuba, but provided for
the cession of the Philippine Islands to the United States,
the menace of imperialism became so apparent that many
preferred to reject the treaty and risk the ills that might
follow rather than take the chance of correcting the errors of
the treaty by the independent action of this country. I was
among the number of those who believed it better to ratify the