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Philosophia Mathematica Advance Access originally published online on March 14, 2007
Philosophia Mathematica 2007 15(3):400-404; doi:10.1093/philmat/nkm010
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Copyright © The Author 2007. Published by Oxford University Press.

Book Review

SAUNDERS MAC LANE. Saunders Mac Lane: A Mathematical Autobiography

Colin McLarty*

* Department of Philosophy, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio 44106 U. S. A.

Correspondence: colin.mclarty@case.edu

Saunders Mac Lane. Saunders Mac Lane: A Mathematical Autobiography. Wellesley, Mass.: A K Peters, 2005. Pp. xvi + 358 . ISBN-10 1-56881-150-0

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

We are used to seeing foundations linked to the mainstream mathematics of the late nineteenth century: the arithmetization of analysis, non-Euclidean geometry, and the rise of abstract structures in algebra. And a growing number of case studies bring a more philosophy-of-science viewpoint to the latest mathematics, as in [Carter, 2005Go; Corfield, 2006Go; Krieger, 2003Go; Leng, 2002Go]. Mac Lane's autobiography is a valuable bridge between these, recounting his experience of how the mid- and late-twentieth-century mainstream grew especially through Hilbert's school.

An autobiography at age 94 obviously has a lot of ground to cover. Mac Lane entered Yale in 1926 to study chemistry as a good practical career field but by the end of his first year he had won a $50 prize in mathematics and learned that you could make a living with it—as an actuary. He decided to do that. The next year he was . . . [Full Text of this Article]


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