"The theory of the nature of mathematics is extremely reactionary. We do not subscribe to the fairly recent notion that mathematics is an abstract language based, say, on set theory. In many ways, it is unfortunate that philosophers and mathematicians like Russell and Hilbert were able to tell such a convincing story about the meaning-free formalism of mathematics. In Greek, mathematics simply meant learning, and we have adapted this... to define the term as "learing to decide." Mathematics is a way of preparing for decisions through thinking. Sets and classes provide one way to subdivide a problem for decision preparation; a set derives its meaning from decision making, and not vice versa."
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Academics from the United StatesPhilosophers from the United StatesMathematicians from the United StatesBusiness theorists from the United StatesSystems scientists
Original Language: English
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C. West Churchman, Leonard Auerbach, Simcha Sadan, Thinking for Decisions: Deductive Quantitative Methods (1975) Preface.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/C._West_Churchman
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C. West Churchman
Charles West Churchman (29 August 1913 – 21 March 2004) was an American philosopher and systems scientist, known for his pioneering work in operations research, system analysis and ethics.
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