Subject: Re: [HM] the term 'arithmetization'
From: Bill Everdell (Everdell@aol.com)
Date: Mon Jan 03 2000 - 23:38:45 EST
In a message dated 1/3/00 Mic Detlefsen writes:
<<If one is interested in ALL uses of the term 'arithmetisiren' (and its
cognates and parallel words in other languages in which German authors may
have written), regardless of their basic meaning, I would be surprised if
the first use isn't considerably earlier than the latter half of the 19th
century.>>
The trusty OED gives "arithmetize" for "do arithmetic" in 1658; but
"arithmeticize" for "treat arithmetically" in an essay by T. Sinclair in the
year of the last installment of McColl's key early article in symbolic logic,
"Calculus of Equivalent Statements." The year was 1878. Sinclair wrote (see
another [HM] thread):
"Let men reverence poetry; and [...] they will not set themselves to
arithmeticize it."
Bill Everdell, Brooklyn
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