MIT-Global Humanities and the Centre Gilles Gaston Granger

Mathematical Cultures

Coordinators: Shankar Raman (MIT), Frédéric Jaëck (Aix-Marseille Université, Centre Gilles Gaston Granger)

The Idea: Motivations & Scope

One of humanity’s oldest thought companions, mathematics has served directly to resolve diverse enigmas encountered along its own path of development. From the earliest symbolic inscriptions to the abstractions of modern science, mathematics has offered tools, forms, and ideals of reflection that have shaped how humans interact with the world.

Yet beyond its role as a formal or instrumental apparatus — so remarkably efficient across the natural sciences — mathematics has always appeared in more unexpected terrains. It has been present as an ingredient in nearly every mode of engaging the world, whether scientific, philosophical, or artistic — and especially so when we seek to grasp what escapes direct perception, what cannot be immediately or straightforwardly captured by our senses.

Mathematics has inspired philosophy, literature, the visual and performing arts, architecture, and politics. Its gestures, figures, and constructions resonate far beyond the domains of calculation or the proving of theorems and the building of theories. One discovers mathematical ideas, structures, or intuitions at work in poetry, in literature, in metaphysical speculations, in aesthetic theories and practices, and they are even mobilised by political actors to justify their projects. And in turn, the developmental path of mathematics itself has often been set by how these diverse domains both enable and constrain its expression.

In sum, the use of mathematics far exceeds the registers of rationality and logic with which it is so often exclusively associated. It intervenes in diverse modalities of thought and expression — including those that do not define themselves entirely by rational coherence or deductive rigor — and the questions it poses are in turn the results of such interventions or encounters. To account for this strange ubiquity — this recurrence of forms of mathematical thought and practice in places where no (mathematical) necessity would seem to require them — demands the shift in perspective that is central to this research group: we aim not merely at a philosophy of mathematics, but a philosophy of mathematical cultures.

Recognising the wide array of sites across space and time in which mathematics has made its appearance, we ask not only what mathematics is, but what mathematics does, what forms of sensibility, creativity, or authority it enables. What does it mean, historically and culturally, for mathematics to play a role in shaping worlds of thought, of practice, and of imagination? In what forms and under what modalities does mathematics act across a diversity of situations that are often, a priori, independent or autonomous — culturally, geographically, and historically?

Guiding Questions

Where does the surprising efficacy of mathematics come from — and in what sense does this efficacy exceed mere instrumentality?
In what ways does mathematics permeate human thought — including domains seemingly far removed from logic or rational coherence?
How do human beings rely on mathematics, on mathematical ideas, or more generally on forms of mathematical culture, in practices that are not necessarily mathematical — such as the arts, literature, politics, or other symbolic systems?
How do mathematical forms shape or structure modes of thought that do not define themselves by rationality alone?
What kind of philosophy of thought is required to account both for this efficacy and for the persistent interplay between mathematical and non-rational modes of thinking?
Can we begin to sketch a cultural history of mathematics — not merely as a history of theories and results, but as a history of forms, figures, and imaginaries, including the circulation and imprint of mathematical thought across diverse domains?

Goals & Actions

Foster a collaborative dialogue among mathematicians, philosophers of mathematics, and practitioners from fields outside mathematics who find inspiration in mathematical ideas, aiming to understand the reasons and mechanisms behind this inspiration.
Develop historically informed analyses of situations in which mathematics deployed beyond its own domain — e.g., in literature, philosophy, dance, other arts, and politics.
From this broader historical and cultural perspective, identify productive ways to precisely determine the role of mathematics in these domains as well as show how the sites of expression potentially shape mathematical thinking itself.
Contrast the nature of mathematical discourse as it appears within mathematics and scienc with its appropriation and transformation in other fields, with a view towards challenging and even reversing a dominant view that mathematics is the key to understand the natural sciences.
Lay the groundwork for a global history of mathematical cultures, which would embrace its diverse expressions, circulations, and impacts worldwide, focusing in particular on interactions between mathematics and other modes of thought.

Ongoing Work

Project 1: Governing by Numbers — How mathematical ideas and quantification shape political governance

Context and Motivation

The study of governance by numbers addresses how mathematical concepts, statistics, probabilities and quantification methods are employed—sometimes instrumentalized or even rhetorically invoked—to structure political decision-making, administrative control, and social order. This topic, explores both historical and contemporary practices, scrutinizing the tension between technocratic rationality and democratic values. A complementary project would focus on cultures of risk, comparing globally and historically how and to what end different cultures and domains of inquiry have sought to produce stability out of the inevitable experience of uncertainty.

Key Contributors

Karine Chemla – Known for her deep work on ancient Chinese mathematics, Chemla offers a rare global and historical perspective that can enrich the project. In particular, her analysis of how mathematical knowledge addressed economic and administrative challenges in ancient China would provide valuable insights into non-Western traditions of governance through mathematics.
William Derringer – A professor of science, technology, and society at MIT. His research examines the history of those techniques and technologies of calculation that organise modern economic, financial, and political life. His work ranges widely, from early compound-interest tales and changing social relationships in the English countryside in the early 1600s to the place of computer spreadsheets in the culture of Wall Street in the “go-go” 1980s.
Emmanuel Didier – A research director at the CNRS and a member of the Centre Maurice-Halbwachs (ENS & EHESS). He founded the Society for the Social Studies of Quantification (SSSQ), an international network including UCLA, LSE, Northwestern, and Wits University. His work focuses on the links between politics and quantification from a socio-historical perspective. He recently published Quantitative Marbling: New Conceptual Tools for the Socio-history of Quantification.
Frédéric Jaëck – A philosopher of mathematics based at the Centre Gilles-Gaston Granger, affiliated with CNRS and Aix-Marseille University, France. He works on mathematical thinking and its applications beyond formal mathematics. He explores how mathematics informs reasoning in various domains. Central to his research is the connection between mathematics and rationality outside traditional boundaries.
Hugo Harari-Kermadec – A professor of sociology at the University of Orléans and associate researcher at IDHES (ENS Paris-Saclay / CNRS). Trained as a statistician, his work focuses on quantification as a political and economic device in higher education. He has analyzed how rankings and numerical evaluation contribute to the marketization of universities. His research addresses tuition fees, social segregation, and the governance of education through numbers.
Bruno Perreau – Cynthia L. Reed Professor of French Studies and Language at MIT. He specialised in critical theory, politics, and contemporary French Literature and Culture. His research addresses gender, sexuality, bioethics, and minority politics in a global context, emphasizing legal hermeneutics, narrative, and social theories of justice. He is also the founding chair of the MIT Global France Seminar and founder of the French+ Initiative@MIT.
Shankar Raman – A professor of literature at MIT who works on interconnections between literature and mathematics in early modernity and is especially interested in the intersections of these domains with philosophy, theology, and law.
Mélanie Sargeac – A sociologist and postdoctoral researcher at CNRS (IDHES, Université Paris Nanterre). Her work focuses on selection processes in higher education, especially in law, and the role of quantification in shaping institutional hierarchies. She has studied the impact of platforms like Parcoursup and recent French reforms on access and inequality. She co-organises a seminar at EHESS on the sociology of university governance and reform.
Alain Supiot (TBC) – A Professor Emeritus at the Collège de France, where he held the chair of “Social State and Globalization: Legal Analysis of Solidarities”. In his influential book La gouvernance par les nombres (2015), he analyzes how the rise of quantitative indicators reshapes governance by shifting from law-based regulation to management through metrics, challenging traditional legal and political frameworks. His work highlights the risks of depoliticization and the transformation of social bonds into technocratic performance measures.

Research Gaps and Opportunities

Towards a Deeper Analysis of How Mathematics Operates in Governance — Existing research remains situated within specific institutional or disciplinary frameworks: e.g, the bureaucratic logic of quantification, the historical authority of statistical objectivity, and the epistemologies of expert judgment. What is notably lacking, however, is a more reflective and unified problematic concerning the recourse to mathematics itself—its justifications, modes of operation, and implications when employed as an instrument of governance, legitimacy, or knowledge production. Rather than simply calling for another synthesis, we aim to sketch a space of critical reflection and conceptual broadening, where recourse to mathematics is not only described in empirical contexts but also rigorously interrogated in its political, epistemic, and normative dimensions.
Comparative, Historical and Global Perspectives — Most current works focus on Western modernity. Extending the study to non-Western historical cases (such as Chemla’s work on China or the role of medieval Arab mathematicians in the emergence of European modernity) or to contemporary Global South contexts remains underdeveloped.
Interdisciplinary Integration — There is a need for approaches that combine legal philosophy, history, sociology, theology, and political theory with philosophy of mathematics, to better understand the epistemic and normative dimensions of governance by numbers.
Critical Analysis of Technocratic Governance — Further research could illuminate the democratic, ethical, and social implications of data-driven governance, AI, and algorithmic decision-making.

Research Questions

How have mathematical concepts and statistical/probabilistic reasoning been integrated into governance structures across different cultures and historical periods?
How has risk and uncertainty been conceptualised and addressed in different cultural and historical contexts?
In what ways do cultural and institutional contexts shape the role and meaning of numbers in political governance?
What consequences does governance by numbers have for democracy, social justice, and individual freedoms?
How do societies resist, negotiate, or transform technocratic governance regimes to preserve or reinvent legal and political values?

Project 2: Mathematics in the Fabric of the Sensible

Context and Motivation

Mathematics in the Fabric of the Sensible: A Project Proposition

This project seeks to reframe the understanding of mathematics, moving beyond its conventional image as a purely hyper-rational and detached discipline. We challenge the familiar oppositions—between the rational and the irrational, abstraction and experience—to investigate how mathematical thought, in dialogue with literature, poetry, and the arts, contributes to shaping the sensible world. The aim is to explore mathematics not merely as a tool for describing the rational structure of reality, but as a fundamental mode of expression embedded in cultural and imaginative life—a form through which our deepest experiences of being are articulated, in resonance with other expressive forms.

One line of inquiry draws on recent work by Shankar Raman, who examines the entanglements of mathematics with literature and poetry in early modernity. Through figures such as Descartes and Sidney, Raman shows how geometrical and algebraic forms co-evolved with literary and poetic practices, jointly shaping new ways of producing meaning. This perspective provides a crucial starting point for broadening the investigation to other historical and cultural contexts, where mathematical, literary, and poetic operations coexist in proximity rather than in opposition.

A second, complementary direction focuses on mathematics as a privileged way of engaging with the infinite, the unconditioned, and the irrational—dimensions central to human experience. This approach is central to Frédéric Jaëck’s recent work, which conceives of mathematical thinking as an orthoepy of being: a precise mode of expression that gives form to what resists direct linguistic capture. In this sense, mathematics may be seen as a path toward what François Jullien describes as the incommensurable—that which exceeds language, yet remains essential to thought and existence.

From this standpoint, mathematics—like literature and poetry—offers a continually renewed means of confronting the infinite and the incommensurable at the heart of human life. It proposes a way of “doing with” what Jullien calls the originary fissure [fêlure] that constitutes our humanity. Alongside other expressive modes, mathematics may thus be understood as a gesture of utterance that neither denies nor resolves this fissure, but instead brings it into form and presence.

Although the project has a broader perspective, the notion of meaning remains at the core of its development, and we intend to pursue this particular aspect much more intensively by applying for an ERC Synergy grant.

Key Contributors (tentative list)

Kristopher Brown – A scientist who completed a postdoctoral fellowship in computer science at the University of Florida and holds a PhD in chemical engineering from Stanford University. He will be involved in the ERC SyG project, contributing particularly to its dimensions related to a new paradigm in artificial intelligence.
Frédéric Jaëck (AMU-CGGG) – [PI of the ERC SyG project]
François Jullien – A philosopher and professor at Université Paris Cité, where he has directed the Institut de la pensée contemporaine. Drawing on classical Chinese philosophy, he develops concepts such as the écart and the incommensurable to question the presuppositions of Western thought. His work emphasizes what resists formulation yet shapes human experience and meaning. Jullien offers tools to re-engage philosophical inquiry with the ungraspable dimensions of existence.
Bruno Perreau (MIT).
Shankar Raman (MIT) – [PI of the ERC SyG project]
Til Wykes (TBC) – [PI of the ERC SyG project] Head of the School of Mental Health & Psychological Sciences and Professor of Clinical Psychology and Rehabilitation at King’s College London. Her work explores psychiatry and psychology through the study of atypical linguistic expressions, investigating how singular modes of expression illuminate the inner life. She leads the Psychiatry and Clinical Interactions unit, fostering research that bridges clinical practice and the nuanced understanding of human communication.
Fernando Zalamea (TBC) – A philosopher and mathematician based at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia in Bogotá. His work traverses modern mathematics, continental philosophy, and the arts, articulating a vision of the “synthetic reason” that links formal abstraction with the unfolding of cultural meaning. Deeply influenced by Peirce and category theory, Zalamea reclaims mathematics as a generative force within contemporary thought. His writing invites a reinvention of conceptual life across disciplines.

Research Questions

State of the Art and Challenges

Funding goals

ERC Synergy (see attached draft -10M€): The project aims to rethink the foundations of meaning by bringing together three distinct yet interrelated domains: philosophy of mathematics, literature, and clinical psychology. Based on this renewed and more adequate conception of meaning, we will develop a new type of language model. This model will serve both as a tool for advancing research in the humanities and as a support for forms of medical care that demand sensitivity to the singularity of expression.
CNRS - MRSEI (Montage de Réseaux Scientifiques Européens ou Internationaux) — €36,000 over 24 months : form and coordinate transnational research networks.
Radcliffe Exploratory Seminars (Harvard Radcliffe Institute): provides financial support for seminars designed to cultivate interdisciplinary dialogue around early-stage ideas, emphasizing intellectual risk-taking and innovation.