Professor Denounces Maths for Creating 'masculine' Paradigm
that Privileges Dispassionate Reason and Analysis
An American-born professor at the
University of Exeter, UK, claims in a new
textbook that learning mathematics can
cause "collateral damage" to society by
training students in "ethics-free thought"."The Ethics of Mathematics: Is Mathematics Harmful?" was written by University of Exeter Professor Paul Ernest, and published as a chapter in a 2018 textbook he edited called The Philosophy of Mathematics Education Today.
Despite the myriad benefits maths offers to society - such as increased scientific knowledge and improved healthcare, allowing us to live longer and happier lives - Ernest warns of the ways mathematics education causes "collateral damage" to society.
Ernest asserts that "the nature of pure of mathematics itself leads to styles of thinking that can be damaging when applied beyond mathematics to social and human issues", since maths facilitates "detached" and "calculative" reasoning.
"Reasoning without meanings provides a training in ethics-free thought," he writes, fretting that this "masculine" paradigm "valorises rules, abstraction, objectification, impersonality, unfeelingness, dispassionate reason, and analysis".
Extract from Toni Airaksinen, Campus Reform (Arlington,
Virginia), June 19, 2018. 