That’s a pretty low bar. Is wiping your ass a social activity too? Because, presumably, your mom taught you how to do it, and the fact you’re doing it with paper is strongly influenced by earlier ass wiper’s choices.
But never mind that. Suppose the hermit never learned any math, not even addition. Will you say that his math would still be social, because he already knew the words “zero”, “one”, “two”, which hint at the set of naturals? Then suppose that the hermit has not seen a human since the day he was born, was raised by wolves, developed his own language from zero, and then described some theory in that (indeed, this hermit might be the greatest genius who ever lived). Surely that’s not social. But is it not math?
Personally, I’d be perfectly happy to say that our hypothetical hermit is doing mathematics despite the complete absence of social connections; but I wasn’t endorsing the claim that mathematics is a social activity, merely explicating it. (And of course it’s possible that my explication fails to match what Anthony would have said.) I am not confident enough of my understanding of Anthony’s position to guess at his answer to your hypothetical question.
(But, for what it’s worth, if for some reason I were required to defend the mathematics-is-social claim against this argument, I think I would say that it suffices that mathematics as actually practiced is social; making political speeches is fairly uncontroversially a social activity even though one can imagine a supergenius hermit contemplating the possibility of a society that features political speeches and making some for fun.)
That’s a pretty low bar. Is wiping your ass a social activity too? Because, presumably, your mom taught you how to do it, and the fact you’re doing it with paper is strongly influenced by earlier ass wiper’s choices.
But never mind that. Suppose the hermit never learned any math, not even addition. Will you say that his math would still be social, because he already knew the words “zero”, “one”, “two”, which hint at the set of naturals? Then suppose that the hermit has not seen a human since the day he was born, was raised by wolves, developed his own language from zero, and then described some theory in that (indeed, this hermit might be the greatest genius who ever lived). Surely that’s not social. But is it not math?
Personally, I’d be perfectly happy to say that our hypothetical hermit is doing mathematics despite the complete absence of social connections; but I wasn’t endorsing the claim that mathematics is a social activity, merely explicating it. (And of course it’s possible that my explication fails to match what Anthony would have said.) I am not confident enough of my understanding of Anthony’s position to guess at his answer to your hypothetical question.
(But, for what it’s worth, if for some reason I were required to defend the mathematics-is-social claim against this argument, I think I would say that it suffices that mathematics as actually practiced is social; making political speeches is fairly uncontroversially a social activity even though one can imagine a supergenius hermit contemplating the possibility of a society that features political speeches and making some for fun.)