Can Math Be like Cholesterol? (Book Review: Hacking, I. (2020) Why Is There Philosophy of Mathematics at All? Translated from English by V.V. Tselishchev. Kanon + ROOI “Rehabilitation”. 400 p.)

The article reviews the Russian translation of the book Why Is There Philosophy of Mathematics at All? by Ian Hacking. The book discusses the fundamental problems of the philosophy of mathematics. The author being an analytic philosopher nonetheless refuses the academic analytical style of text presentation and creates a work extraordinarily saturated on the contextual and emotional levels. This review pursues several aims: ostensive, explicative and interpretive. It means, firstly, the review is designed to inform the Russian-speaking reader that, thanks to the talented translation, there is an opportunity to read an unusual and extremely relevant philosophical text. Secondly, the description of the structural and thematic framework of the book allows understanding the “labyrinth” of the author's references, examples and narrative lines. Thirdly, the reviewer interprets key antagonistic pairs, in fact agreeing with the author's anthropocentric measurement of ontological problems of mathematics. The free style of the review completely corresponds to the tonality of the considered text.

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