Chapitre D'ouvrage Année : 2025

In what sense can we say that numbers are social products?

En quel sens peut-on dire que les nombres sont des produits sociaux ?

Michel Le Du
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Résumé

A recurring trend in the anthropology of science is to present science (including mathematics) as just another cultural product. In a sense, there is something trivial about this assertion. But, at the same time, even if we can identify mathematical traditions, we cannot put them on the same level as the diversity of traditions and currents to be found in literature or art. It is somewhat difficult to accept that mathematics or logic can take completely different directions from one society to another and that, for example, agents from a different cultural area can subscribe to a progression of numbers that deviates from the one we know. If mathematics can be described as a « cultural product », it is certainly not in the sense that it can vary from one culture to another. And if the rules of arithmetic, for example, are described as conventions, it cannot be in the sense that the rules of traffic can be presented as conventions (which can, in principle, be replaced by others). The aim of this chapter is therefore to consider how to combine the social and collective dimension of mathematics with its necessity.

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hal-05523612 , version 1 (23-02-2026)

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Michel Le Du. En quel sens peut-on dire que les nombres sont des produits sociaux ?. Delphine Pasques; Franck Neveu. La catégorie du nombre. Langues romanes et langues germaniques en dialogue, De Gruyter, pp.13-27, 2025, 978-3-11-150501-5. ⟨10.1515/9783111505084-002⟩. ⟨hal-05523612⟩
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