Poincare, Philosopher of Science: Problems and Perspectives

This volume presents a selection of papers from the Poincare Project of the Center for the Philosophy of Science, University of Lisbon, bringing together an international group of scholars with new assessments of Henri Poincare's philosophy of science-both its historical impact on the foundations of science and mathematics, and its relevance to contemporary philosophical inquiry. The work of Poincare (1854-1912) extends over many fields within mathematics and mathematical physics. But his scientific work was inseparable from his groundbreaking philosophical reflections, and the scientific ferment in which he participated was inseparable from the philosophical controversies in which he played a pre-eminent part. The subsequent history of the mathematical sciences was profoundly influenced by Poincare's philosophical analyses of the relations between and among mathematics, logic, and physics, and, more generally, the relations between formal structures and the world of experience. The papers in this collection illuminate Poincare's place within his own historical context as well as the implications of his work for ours.