Concept
Function (mathematics)
Overview
association of a single output to each input
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
Found by search and not yet checked by a person; they may only mention the idea in passing.
Again, the function of transferring nutriment or latent energy, from part to part, though at first not closely connected with the other functions, eventually becomes so. The short contractile tube which propels backwards and forwards the blood contained in the peri-visceral cavity of an ascidian, is neither structurally nor functionally much entangled with the creature's other organs.
Herbert Spencer, The Principles of Biology, Volume 1
The chapter “FUNCTION.” is titled for Function; names Function several times.
In the same way, is not the derived function, by its nature, likewise the necessary _limit_ towards which tends the ratio between the increment of the primitive function and that of its variable, in proportion as this last indefinitely diminishes, since it evidently expresses what that ratio becomes when we suppose the increment of the variable to equal zero? That which is designated by _dx_/_dy_ in the method of…
Auguste Comte, The philosophy of mathematics
Names Function several times; opens on Function.
For in the attempt to bring these two functions together the purposive function is swallowed up in the representative. The idea still is, or has a purpose, a "plan of action," but this purpose, this plan, is now nothing but to represent and correspond with its own final and completed form in the absolute system.
John Dewey, Studies in Logical Theory
Names Function several times; states what Function is.
Philosophers who discussed Function (mathematics)
Related ideas
- Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
- Tuple
- Differential equation
- Integer
- Isaac Newton
- Computability theory
- Foundations of mathematics
- Lambda calculus
- Mathematics
- Group (mathematics)
- Mathematical logic
- Real number
- Manifold
- Natural number
- Ordered pair
- Planet
- Primitive notion
- Set (mathematics)
- Science
- Set theory
- Subset
- Commutative property
- Topology
- Theory of computation
Opposing perspectives
Place in the tradition
Part of Logic translation.