How mathematical activity shapes its language and textual forms

In 1920, Marcel Granet (1884-1940), an influential sinologist of the first decades of the ^20th century, thought it appropriate to make some recommendations to those who were reforming the Chinese language at the time. In an article entitled "Quelques particularités de la langue et de la pensée chinoises" (1920, reprinted in 1990, PUF), he wrote: "No alphabet, no morphology; and without morphology, no science and no positive spirit. He therefore invited them to get rid of their writing once and for all. In the pages of Volume VII of Science and Civilisation in China, Christoph Harbsmeier (Book I, 1998) on the one hand, and Joseph Needham and Kenneth Robinson (Book II, 2004) on the other, each in their own way offer material refuting the theses of Granet and the many others who subscribe to comparable views. In particular, Needham invites his readers to examine the Chinese language not, as Granet and so many others have done, out of context, but in the many scholarly texts written in Chinese over the millennia, where it can be seen at work. My contribution will adopt a similar strategy, but will focus on different aspects. In my view, the observation of scientific texts shows how given work collectives continuously shape their language of practice and textual forms in relation to the questions they pursue, the operations they perform and the values to which they subscribe. To this end, these collectives draw resources from the languages in contact with which they work, and from the uses to which these languages are put. More broadly, however, they make use of all kinds of resources. They also transform these resources and create new ones in relation to the work they do. I'm convinced that only by paying close attention to the creative dimension of language and text in all intellectual activity can we understand the profound transformations of language and textual forms that scientific writings have undergone throughout history.

Biography

After studying mathematics at ENSJF, K. Chemla turned to the history of mathematics and sinology. A CNRS researcher since 1982 (UMR SPHERE, CNRS-Université Paris Diderot, Sorbonne Paris Cité), she works on the diversity of mathematical practices and cultures, particularly in ancient China, and on the circulation of knowledge. Together with Agathe Keller and Christine Proust, she led the European Research Council-funded advanced studies project "Sciences mathématiques du monde ancien" (SAW). K. Chemla is the author, with Guo Shuchun, of Les Neuf Chapitres (Dunod 2004). She coordinated The History of mathematical proof in the ancient traditions (Cambridge University Press, 2012). She has also edited, with J. Virbel, Texts, Textual Acts and the History of science (Springer, 2015), with Renaud Chorlay and David Rabouin, The Oxford Handbook of Generality in Mathematics and the Sciences, Oxford University Press, 2016) and, with E. Fox Keller, Cultures without culturalism in the making of scientific knowledge (Duke University Press, 2017).