5 Philosophers That Are Also Mathematicians: Pythagoras, (Born C. 570 BCE, Samos, Ionia (Greece) - Died C. 500

5 Philosophers that are also
mathematicians
Pythagoras, (born c. 570 BCE, Samos, Ionia [Greece]—died c. 500–
490 BCE, Metapontum, Lucanium [Italy]), Greek philosopher, mathematician, and
founder of the Pythagorean brotherhood that, although religious in nature,
formulated principles that influenced the thought of Plato and Aristotle and
contributed to the development of mathematics and Western rational philosophy.
(For a fuller treatment of Pythagoras and Pythagorean thought, seePythagoreanism).
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (b. 1646, d. 1716) was a German philosopher,

mathematician, and logician who is probably most well known for having
invented the differential and integral calculus (independently of Sir Isaac
Newton). In his correspondence with the leading intellectual and political figures
of his era, he discussed mathematics, logic, science, history, law, and theology.
Principal Works:
 De Arte Combinatoria (‘On the Art of Combination’), 1666

 Hypothesis Physica Nova (‘New Physical Hypothesis’), 1671
 Discours de métaphysique (‘Discourse on Metphysics’), 1686
 unpublished manuscripts on the calculus of concepts, c. 1690
 Nouveaux Essais sur L'entendement humaine (‘New Essays on Human Understanding’),
1705
 Théodicée (‘Theodicy’), 1710
 Monadologia (‘The Monadology’), 1714
Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947) was a British mathematician and

philosopher best known for his work in mathematical logic and the
philosophy of science. In collaboration with Bertrand Russell, he co-
authored the landmark three-volume Principia Mathematica (1910, 1912,
1913). Later, he was instrumental in pioneering the approach to
metaphysics now known as process philosophy.
Although there are important continuities throughout his career,
Whitehead’s intellectual life is often divided into three main periods. The
first corresponds roughly to his time at Cambridge from 1884 to 1910. It was during these years
that he worked primarily on issues in mathematics and logic. It was also during this time that he
collaborated with Russell. The second main period, from 1910 to 1924, corresponds roughly to
his time at London. During these years Whitehead concentrated mainly on issues in physics, the
philosophy of science, and the philosophy of education. The third main period corresponds
roughly to his time at Harvard from 1924 onward. It was during this time that he worked
primarily on issues in metaphysics.
René Descartes, (born March 31, 1596, La Haye, Touraine, France—died

February 11, 1650, Stockholm, Sweden), French mathematician, scientist,
and philosopher. Because he was one of the first to abandon scholastic
Aristotelianism, because he formulated the first modern version of mind-
body dualism, from which stems the mind-body problem, and because he
promoted the development of a new science grounded in observation and
experiment, he has been called the father of modern philosophy. Applying
an original system of methodical doubt, he dismissed apparent knowledge
derived from authority, the senses, and reason and erected new epistemic foundations on the
basis of the intuition that, when he is thinking, he exists; this he expressed in the dictum “I think,
therefore I am” (best known in its Latin formulation, “Cogito, ergo sum,” though originally
written in French, “Je pense, donc je suis”). He developed a metaphysical dualism that
distinguishes radically between mind, the essence of which is thinking, and matter, the essence
of which is extension in three dimensions. Descartes’s metaphysics is rationalist, based on the
postulation of innate ideas of mind, matter, and God, but his physics and physiology, based on
sensory experience, are mechanistic and empiricist.
Gottlob Frege was a German logician, mathematician and philosopher who

played a crucial role in the emergence of modern logic and analytic philosophy.
Frege's logical works were revolutionary, and are often taken to represent the
fundamental break between contemporary approaches and the older,
Aristotelian tradition. He invented modern quantificational logic, and created
the first fully axiomatic system for logic, which was complete in its treatment
of propositional and first-order logic, and also represented the first treatment of
higher-order logic. In the philosophy of mathematics, he was one of the most ardent proponents
of logicism, the thesis that mathematical truths are logical truths, and presented influential
criticisms of rival views such as psychologism and formalism. His theory of meaning, especially
his distinction between the sense and reference of linguistic expressions, was groundbreaking in
semantics and the philosophy of language. He had a profound and direct influence on such
thinkers as Russell, Carnap and Wittgenstein. Frege is often called the founder of modern logic,
and he is sometimes even heralded as the founder of analytic philosophy.
REFERENCE
Britannica (2019) Pythagoras: Greek Philosopher and Mathematician
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Pythagoras
Douglas Burnham (2002) Gottfried Leibniz: Metaphysics
https://mally.stanford.edu/leibniz.html
Judith A. Jones (2018) Alfred North Whitehead
https://www.philosophybasics.com/philosophers_whitehead.html
Kevin C. Klement (2002) Gottlob Frege
https://www.iep.utm.edu/frege/
Richard A. Watson (2019) Rene Descartes: French Mathematician and Philosopher
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Rene-Descartes

5 Philosophers That Are Also Mathematicians: Pythagoras, (Born C. 570 BCE, Samos, Ionia (Greece) - Died C. 500

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5 Philosophers That Are Also Mathematicians: Pythagoras, (Born C. 570 BCE, Samos, Ionia (Greece) - Died C. 500

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5 Philosophers that are also

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (b. 1646, d. 1716) was a German philosopher,

 De Arte Combinatoria (‘On the Art of Combination’), 1666

Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947) was a British mathematician and

René Descartes, (born March 31, 1596, La Haye, Touraine, France—died

Gottlob Frege was a German logician, mathematician and philosopher who

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