Knowledge of Functions in the Growth of Mathematical Knowledge

Abstract

The growth of mathematical knowledge can be studied in many different ways. The most fundamental study concerns wie es eigentlich geschehen, how precisely was it that mathematicians came to know what they know. Philosophers of mathematics can neglect this basic story only at their peril. But historians and philosophers alike want to see the history of mathematics as something more than a cavalcade of unrelated episodes. In order to be able to do so, they have to map the conceptual landscape in which the mathematicians of the distant as well as the recent past were moving.