Poincare: Ou Le Renouveau de La Philosophie Naturelle

Henri Poincaré (1854-1912) was an eminent scholar and an outstanding thinker.A renowned mathematician (his name is linked to several mathematical theorems and objects) and a pioneer dynamic systems theorist, he systematized algebraic topology and is considered to have made key contributions to differential calculus.A learned physician whose interest lay in optics and celestial mechanics, his study of the three-body problem led to the chaos theory, while his works on Lorentz transformations made him a direct precursor of the special theory of relativity.This combative philosopher, whose disputes with Russell and Frege over the foundations of mathematics and with the Cantorians about actual infinity are well-known, built a conceptual edifice capable of accounting for the scientific revolutions underway and, on a broader scale, of enabling us to better comprehend nature and the world.This book focuses on Poincaré’s philosophical thought, which the reader can reconstruct by reading his writings based upon a hypothesis: that thought is controlled by the concept of space – a physical space continuum which relates to the body, a mathematical space continuum which relates to the mind; and space, which is expressed in a privileged language, that of geometry. Poincaré revived “natural philosophy” as defined by Copernic, Galileo and Newton, the purpose of which is the study of nature by mathematical means.