.

The philosophy of mathematics is not the most vital issue facing Marxists today, but its clarification can help us argue that the materialist framework is the correct one for making sense of every aspect of the world. We can counter the arguments of those who say that objective truth is to be found only in the `hard' sciences and that trying to make sense of history and society today leads only to subjective opinion and waffle. No indeed, mathematics is an enormously powerful tool and a beautifully elegant subject in its own right, but it is not the foundation of all knowledge and it is not the only tool.

It is too wasteful keeping mathematics in its ivory tower where only a small elite are granted the privilege of access. It deprives those outside of a powerful technique for understanding and, hence, changing the world. And it deprives mathematics of a vast pool of experience and intelligence which could raise the subject to hitherto unexplored heights.