Mathematics, Logic, and Experience

Despite the many differences in conceptions of Mental processes, the Philosophical tradition has been in general unanimity that the proper sphere of Mathematics and Logics is Cognition. For Plato, Mathematics is the object of disembodied Contemplation, while for Aristotle, Logic is the contemplated essence of Ontological relations. They remain disembodied processes for not only Descartes, but for the British Empiricists--for e. g. Hume, they are abstractions from disembodiedly-perceived qualities. Kant challenges this tradition by conceiving them as 'Forms' immanent in 'Experience'--Mathematics in Sensibility, Logic in the Understanding--but continues the tradition by defining 'Experience' as Cognitive. Peirce begins to discover their Practical character, when he proposes that they are both fundamentally hypothetical operations. Dewey develops this operational conception of Mathematics and Logic, by showing how they are rooted in both technical and everyday problem-solving processes. But still, even for Dewey, even those everyday processes are primarily Cognitive. In contrast, in the Evolvemental concept of Experience, Mathematics and Logic are fundamentally immanent in Conduct--Mathematics, beginning with Ordinal Numbers, is abstracted from the sequential, cumulative nature of Conduct, while Logic is abstracted from the connectivity of Conduct, originating in the 'I' itself, the pivotal Middle Term between what one has just done, and what one is about to do.