Abstract

What role does genius play in scientific invention and discovery? This was a question at the fore of many discussions in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, especially as the Romantic movement came to a head. It also serves as a frame for Idit Chikurel's focused and fascinating account of Salomon Maimon's views about mathematical invention and discovery. As with many of his positions, Maimon adopted a rather iconoclastic theory of genius and invention, and Chikurel does an excellent job of charting the ways in which Maimon sought to categorize the means by which we can make inventions and discoveries in mathematics. The project is fairly narrow and assumes a good deal of familiarity with Maimon, so it is...