Reading Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics in Times of COVID-19: Remarks on the Relationship Between Mathematics and Society

Abstract

The crisis, following the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic across the globe, has been unprecedented in terms of the extent to which it has been mathematised, such that both our understanding of it and responses to it have been largely guided by mathematical or epidemiological models. Mathematical certainties seem to have provided a reliable guide for action and anticipation in the midst of looming uncertainties unleashed by the spread of the virus. States, too, have mostly relied on mathematical projection to dole out policies for precaution and control, as the strange ‘fix’ between prevailing uncertainties and mathematical certainties, has provided the rationale for acting urgently and, literally, imposingly. Instead of attending to the fragility and diversity of human worlds mathematics of the pandemic has produced sweeping, but, ‘critical sounding’ generalisations and governments, world-over, have been too ready to act on their behest, often to the great detriment of the working poor and marginalised sections of society. This article offers a critical evaluation of this ‘fix’ and more generally of the mathematics of the pandemic with the help of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics. The argument is that in the absence of a proper appreciation of the sociality of mathematics we create certain pictures of the mathematical, with very concrete consequences at the level of policy and implementation, which demean and dehumanise instead of helping us out in times of need and despair. A case is made for a mathematics which is more sensitive to our vulnerabilities, desires and capabilities, as an alternative to solutionism which has come to dominate our life with and in crisis.