Fulbright French National Scholar
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
2027Philosophy of Mathematics
Frédéric
Jaëck
What does it mean
to think in mathematics?
Philosophy of mathematical thinking
Modern and contemporary mathematics
Artificial forms of mathematical thinking
Associate Professor (Maître de conférences hors classe) · HDR
Aix-Marseille University
Centre Gilles-Gaston Granger · UMR 7304
Aix-Marseille University
Centre Gilles-Gaston Granger · UMR 7304
01 Research
A philosophyof mathematicalthinking.
My research begins with a question: what does it mean to think in mathematics? It is primarily philosophical and seeks to characterize the distinctive forms of mathematical thinking, the powers it brings into play, and the conditions of its development.
Abstraction, generality, structures, and invariants are approached as modes of mathematical thinking. The inquiry draws on mathematical work as it is actually carried out, especially in modern and contemporary mathematics—from Fréchet and Banach to Grothendieck and Gowers—allowing philosophical concepts to be developed and tested in contact with mathematics as it is made and transformed.
It also examines the emergence of artificial forms of mathematical thinking. My most recent work explores mathematics as an “orthoepy of being”: a mathematically regulated articulation of thought’s relation to being, through which the multiple acquires exact, shareable, and operative forms.
Selected
milestones
Awarded a Radcliffe Exploratory Seminar as co-convener
With Laura DeMarco (Harvard) and Shankar Raman (MIT)
2027Visiting Fellow at the Center for Philosophy of Science
University of Pittsburgh
2025Habilitation in Philosophy of Mathematics
Academic correspondent: Timothy Gowers · Collège de France and ENS
202402 Books & editions
Books
and editions.
A selection of edited books and collective editions at the intersection of mathematics, its history, and philosophy.
01
Albert Lautman philosophe
Co-edited · Rue d’Ulm, 2025
02
La philosophie mathématique II
Co-edited · M×Φ, 2025
03
La philosophie mathématique I
Co-edited · M×Φ, 2024
04
Lectures grothendieckiennes
Edited · SMF / Spartacus, 2021
05
Gösta Mittag-Leffler and Vito Volterra
Co-edited · EMS Press, 2019
Forthcoming
Towards a Philosophy of Mathematical Invariants
Reading Grothendieck Today
Maurice Fréchet, Sur quelques points du calcul fonctionnel
03 Projects & leadership
Leadership
and structuring projects.
International programs, journals, and research collectives extend the philosophical work through shared forms of inquiry.
President-elect of the Philosophy of Mathematics Association
International term, 2026—2029.
Deputy Secretary of the CNFHPST
Elected board member of the French National Committee for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology.
Co-founder of the Annals of Mathematics and Philosophy
Member of the Editorial Board of M×Φ.
Co-head of the History and Philosophy of Science research cluster
Centre Gilles-Gaston Granger, with Paola Cantù and Julien Bernard.
Coordinator of the Mathematical Cultures pillar
MIT Global Humanities × Aix-Marseille University, with Shankar Raman.
Founder and co-director of MathPhiLab
Working group in philosophy of mathematics.
Co-organizer of Aux frontières des mathématiques
Interdisciplinary research group devoted to the relations between mathematics, its history and philosophy, and the sciences that draw on its concepts and methods.
Philosophy · History · Mathematics · AI
“What does it mean
to think in mathematics?”