The interplay between mathematical practices and results:
Résumé
This comment addresses issues regarding the interplay between practices and results in Karine Chemla’s contribution. Those chapters are included in a volume devoted to the exploration of the practice turn using both case studies and theoretical analysis. The case studies examine empirical and mathematical sciences, including the engineering sciences.
This comment questions how a historian of ancient mathematics can get further information by restoring practices and deriving results that are indirectly evidenced in the rare surviving sources that the historian has. It is noteworthy that Chemla discusses directly the relation between practices and results, where results might be understood as the body of knowledge that one can gather in a scientific outcome (e.g., a publication), while practices are the activities and conceptions that led to those results. This issue is still insufficiently addressed in the recent rising of studies on mathematical practices, as far as we can tell from many writings that we consulted and meetings that we attended.