摘要:Karl Mannheim and Oswald Spengler defend diametrically opposed positions on the possibility of a sociology of mathematics. Mannheim argues that mathematics is exempt from sociological explanation; mathematics is not an ideology, and mathematical truths are not culturally relative. This view has been reinforced by Pythagoreans or Platonists who believe that mathematical truths are eternal objects that exist independently of the flux of historical experience. Most historians, philosophers, and sociologists of science have adopted a Mannheimian view mathematics.