PEIRCE

AND GROTHENDIECK ON MATHEMATICAL COGNITION:

A MERGING OF THE PRAGMATICIST MAXIM AND TOPOS THEORY


Fernando Zalamea(*)


Abstract. Around the problematics of “mathematical cognition”, some Peircean and
Grothendieckean tools are presented (Pragmaticist Maxim and Topos Theory), which help to
assess the diverse perspectives and strata which enrich our understanding of mathematics.

Keywords. Peirce, Grothendieck, mathematics, pragmatism, category theory, cognition.


0. INTRODUCTION

Mathematical cognition lies on the borders of art and science, profiting both from compact
esthetical intuitions, deep hypothetical visions, and long rational deductions. In Kantian terms,
mathematics is situated between form and the formal, between sensibility and intelligibility. In
Spanish, this duality is expressed by the use of the prefix “co”, capturing synthetically the back-
and-forth between reason (“razón”) and heart (“corazón = co/razón”). The study of those borders
and dualities can be greatly enhanced thanks to some powerful logical, topo-logical, and
methodo-logical tools, coming from Peirce (the Pragmatic(ist) Maxim, 1870-1900) and from
Grothendieck (Category Theory and Topos Theory, 1955-1990). In this text, we will recall those
tools, and use them in order to provide a rich canvas of alternating forces and cumulative strata
in the assessment of “mathematical cognition”.
Section 1 explains Peirce's pragmatic maxim (in actual realms) and its pragmaticist
extension (in modal contexts). Section 2 describes some Peircean views on mathematics. Section
3 explores some paradigms of Category Theory and Grothendieck's invention of Topos Theory.
Section 4 surveys some Grothendieckean reflections on mathematics. Section 5 proceeds to a
general merging of the Pragmaticist Maxim and Topos Theory. Finally, Section 6 puts at work all
these different perspectives, lying on top of the duality razón – co/razón, in order to appreciate
better our understanding of “mathematical cognition”. Connections between different sections
are drawn in the following Hasse diagram:

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5
2 4

1 3

(*)
Departamento de Matemáticas, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Sede Bogotá. Web: https://unal.academia.edu/FernandoZalamea.
Mail: mailto:fernandozalamea@gmail.com
1. PEIRCE PRAGMATICIST MAXIM (PM)

The pragmatic maxim appears formulated several times throughout Peirce’s intellectual
development. The better known statement is from 1878, but more precise expressions appear
(among others) in 1903 and 1905:


Consider what effects which might conceivably have practical bearings we conceive the object of
our conception to have. Then, our conception of these effects is the whole of our conception of the
object. (Peirce, 1931-1958, 5.402; “How to Make Our Ideas Clear”, 1878)

Pragmatism is the principle that every theoretical judgement expressible in a sentence in the
indicative mood is a confused form of thought whose only meaning, if it has any, lies in its tendency
to enforce a corresponding practical maxim expressible as a conditional sentence having its apodosis
in the imperative mood. (Peirce, 1931-1958, 5.18; “Harvard Lectures on Pragmatism”, 1903)

The entire intellectual purport of any symbol consists in the total of all general modes of rational
conduct which, conditionally upon all the possible different circumstances, would ensue upon the
acceptance of the symbol. (Peirce, 1931-1958, 5.438; “Issues of Pragmaticism”, 1905)


The Pragmaticist Maxim (PM) (1903-1905, possible effects) is a modal extension of the pragmatic
maxim (1878, actual effects), and signals that knowledge, seen as a semiotic-logical process, is
pre-eminently contextual (versus absolute), relational (versus substantial), modal (versus
determined), synthetic (versus analytic). (PM) serves as a sophisticated sheaf of filters to decant
reality. According to Peirce’s thought, we can only know through signs, and, according to the
maxim, we can only know those signs through diverse correlations of its conceivable effects in
interpretation contexts. The Pragmaticist Maxim “filters” the world by means of three complex
webs which can “differentiate” the one into the many, and, conversely, can “integrate” the many
into the one: a representational web, a relational web, a modal web. Even if the 20th century has
clearly retrieved the importance of representations and has emphasized (since cubism, for
example) a privileged role for interpretations, both the relational and the modal web seem to
have been much less understood (or made good use of) through the century.
For Peirce, the understanding of an arbitrary actual sign is obtained contrasting all
necessary reactions between the interpretations (sub-determinations) of the sign, going over all
possible interpretative contexts. The pragmatic(ist) dimension emphasizes the correlation of all
possible contexts: even if (PM) detects the fundamental importance of local interpretations, it
also urges the reconstruction of global approaches, by means of appropriate relational and modal
glueings of localities. A diagrammatic scheme of the Pragmaticist Maxim –which follows closely
the 1903 and 1905 enunciations above stated– can be the following:

2


Figure 1
Peirce's Pragmaticist Maxim (PM)


The back-and-forth between differentiation and integration is one of the main strengths of the
Pragmaticist Maxim, capable to capture both postmodernist (local, differential, relative) forces
and modernist (global, integral, universal) tensions. Going even beyond, (PM) can be fully
mathematized using Category Theory and non-classical logics (Arengas, 2019), yielding a vast
array of local theorems in completely formalized contexts.
In turn, the Pragmaticist Maxim is closely correlated to Peirce's general phaneroscopy.
Around the 1880s, Peirce had imagined (or discovered, according to our variable ontological
commitment) a wonderful phenomenological tool (Peirce, 1981-, 5.300-301; “One, Two, Three:
an evolutionist speculation”, 1886) which helps to unravel the multilayered geometry of the
strata, obstructions, and transits of knowledge. Phaneroscopy, or the study of the phaneron, that
is the complete collective spectrum present to the mind, includes the doctrine of Peirce's
cenopythagorean categories (“ceno-” coming from the Greek kaíno, “fresh”), which observe the
universal modes (or “tints”) occurring in phenomena. Peirce's three categories are vague, general

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and indeterminate, and can be found simultaneously in every phenomenon. They are interlaced
in several levels, but can be prescised (distinguished, separated, detached) following recursive
layers of interpretations, in progressively more and more determined contexts. A dialectics
between the One and the Many, the universal and the particular, the continuous and the discrete,
the general and the concrete, the integral and the differential, is multilayered along a dense
variety of theoretical and experimental fibers.
Peirce's Firstness detects the immediate, the spontaneous, whatever is independent of any
conception or reference to something else. Secondness is the category of facts, mutual
oppositions, existence, actuality, material fight, action and reaction in a given world. Thirdness
proposes a mediation beyond clashes, a third place where the “one” and the “other” enter a
dialogue, the category of sense, representation, synthesis. As Peirce reckons (Peirce, 1981-,
5.300; “One, Two, Three: an evolutionist speculation”, 1886),


By the Third, I understand the medium which has its being or peculiarity in connecting the more
absolute first and second. The end is second, the means third. A fork in the road is third, it supposes
three ways. (...) The first and second are hard, absolute, and discrete, like yes and no; the perfect
third is plastic, relative, and continuous. Every process, and whatever is continuous, involves
thirdness. (...) Action is second, but conduct third. Law as an active force is second, but order and
legislation third. Sympathy, flesh and blood, that by which I feel my neighbor’s feelings, contains
thirdness. Every kind of sign, representative, or deputy, everything which for any purpose stands
instead of something else, whatever is helpful, or mediates between a man and his wish, is a Third.



Peirce's vague categories can be “tinctured” with key-words: (1) Firstness: immediacy, first
impression, freshness, sensation, unary predicate, monad, chance, possibility; (2) Secondness:
action-reaction, effect, resistance, binary relation, dyad, fact, actuality; (3) Thirdness: mediation,
order, law, continuity, knowledge, ternary relation, triad, generality, necessity. The three
Peircean categories interweave recursively and produce a nested hierarchy of interpretative
modulations (Zalamea, 2012). Dynamic cognition yields progressive precision through
progressive prescision. Both surgery and glueing form part of an ubiquitous topology of
comprehension. Intelligence grows with the definition of more and more contexts of
interpretation, and the association of finer and finer cenopythagorean tinctures inside each
context. As we will see in Section 5 below, this topological flavor of the Pragmaticist Maxim is the
one which will allow the central merging/glueing between Peirce's and Grothendieck's thoughts
on mathematics, as presented in this article.

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2. PEIRCE'S VIEWS ON MATHEMATICS

Peirce’s categories permanently overlap in the phaneron. Phenomena are never isolated, never
wholly situated in some detached categorical realm. Nevertheless, some readings can emphasize
determined categorical layers, and can help to obtain important relative distinctions (the method
shows, right away, that no absolute characterization is to be expected). Throughout his life, Peirce
proposed more than one hundred of such layered readings in reference to the classification of
the sciences. In 1903, using his categories, Peirce came up with a lasting classification, that
Beverley Kent (1987) has designated as the “perennial” classification (see Figure 2).
The first recursive branching of the classification shows the places of mathematics and the
continuum. Mathematics (1), ever-growing support of an ever-growing cathedral, emphasizes
possibilia as Firstness: it studies the abstract relational realm without any actual or real
constraints. In place (1.1) of the classification, the mathematical study of the immediately
accessible is drawn: the study of finite collections. In place (1.2), the study of mathematical
action-reactions on the finite is undertaken: colliding with the finite, the infinite collections
appear. In place (1.3) a mediation is realized: the general study of continuity emerges. The
awesome richness of mathematics arises from its peculiar position in the panorama of
knowledge: constructing its relational web with pure possibilities, it reaches nevertheless
actuality (and even reality) by means of unsuspected applications, guaranteeing in each context
its necessity. The fluid wanderings of mathematics –from the possible to the actual and
necessary– are specific of the discipline.

Figure 2
Peirce's Triadic Classification of the Sciences

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 Peirce insisted on the hypothetical character of mathematics (possibility realm in the
Pragmaticist Maxim) and its true environment (necessary context in the maxim): “Mathematics
is the study of what is true of hypothetical states of things. That is its essence and definition”
(Peirce, 1931-1958, 4.233; 1902). A fair development of this modal back-and-forth between
possibility and necessity needs some fundamental abstraction and generality, also typical of
mathematics: “Another characteristic of mathematical thought is the extraordinary use it makes
of abstractions” (Peirce, 1931-1958, 4.234), “mathematical thought (...) can have no success
where it cannot generalize” (Peirce, 1931-1958, 4.236). Peirce goes on to compare two definitions
of mathematics, the one given by his father (“science which draws necessary conclusions”, Peirce
1931-1958, 4. 239), and the one generalized by him (pendulum between possible hypotheses and
necessary consequences) (Peirce, 1931-1958, 4.238):

It is difficult to decide between the two definitions of mathematics; the one by its method, that of
drawing necessary conclusions; the other by its aim and subject matter, as the study of
hypothetical states of things. The former makes or seems to make the deduction of the
consequences of hypotheses the sole business of the mathematician as such. But it cannot be
denied that immense genius has been exercised in the mere framing of such general hypotheses
as the field of imaginary quantity and the allied idea of Riemann's surface, in imagining non-
Euclidian measurement, ideal numbers, the perfect liquid.

The spatial, “ideal”, “perfect liquid”, appearance of Riemann surfaces is here of particular
importance to us, as we will see in Section 5 below. In a sense, Peirce is looking at a sort of
“geometric definition” of mathematics, beyond a merely deductive one, where the extra
dimensions of the hypothetical, ideal, realms are the ones that provide the peculiar
characteristics of mathematics. In fact, well beyond what will later be called the foundationalist
programs for mathematics (logicism, formalism, intuitionism), Peirce does not look for a
foundation for mathematics (based either on analytical logic, or on synthetical intuition), but
rather the inverse: he looks for an understanding of logic based on mathematics. This is reflected
along the classification of the sciences (Figure 2), where mathematics (1) becomes a soil for the
development of logic (2.2.3). And this corresponds to our contemporary understanding of
mathematical logic, whose main objectives (Proof Theory, Model Theory) study the (i) syntactic
and (ii) semantics of logical languages through (i) algebraic and (ii) topological tools. As often
happens with Peirce, his ideas constitute a web of resistances against the trends of his epoch,
which only a century later acquire their full sense. In particular, regarding mathematics, Peirce's
views offer fresh perspectives, beyond the usual “normalization” trends in the analytical
philosophy of mathematics, where a search for number foundations hinders the possibility to
look at independent, “real”, spatial mathematics (Corfield, 2003). As we will see now with
Grothendieck, a true blend space-number (going even beyond Einstein's “space-time”) is required
to approach a full mathematical cognition.

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3. GROTHENDIECK TOPOS THEORY (TT)

Grothendieck (1958) Edinburgh lecture offers his famous vision on an eventual resolution of the
Weil conjectures, through a cohomological blend of Galois extensions (number realm – schemes)
and Riemann surfaces (spatial realm – toposes) (Zalamea, 2019, 2021). Afterwards, his IHES
decade (1960-1970) provides the gigantic construction of Topos Theory (TT), which not only will
serve as a key tool to solve the conjectures, but will constitute above all a far reaching extension
of the concept of space, with extraordinary applications beyond its bounded, technical,
emergence. In Grothendieck's assessment: “The most fundamental seems to me the extension
of general topology, in the spirit of sheaf theory (developed initially by Jean Leray), contained in
the topos point of view. I introduced these toposes from 1958 on, for the necessity of defining an
l-adic cohomology for algebraic varieties (more generally, for schemes), which would agree with
a cohomological interpretation of the celebrated Weil conjectures. In fact, the traditional notion
of topological space is not sufficient to treat the case of algebraic varieties over a field different
of the complex numbers, since the Zariski topology does not provide reasonable discrete
cohomological invariants” (Grothendieck, 1972, pp. 3-4).
Toposes blend the discrete and the continuous under the general framework of considering
all sheaves over a category-theoretic notion of topology. First, in Figure 3, we recall the concept
of a sheaf (E, X, p), where E is an upper (“global”) topological space, X is a bottom (“local”)
topological space, and p: E ® X is a projection from E to X well behaved (i.e. a “local
homeomorphism”, meaning essentially that the upper space is constructed through small
sections over the bottom space):

Figure 3
From analytic continuation in complex variables (Riemann) to a topological sheaf (Leray)

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 A sheaf is thus conformed of a “folding” X and an “unfolding” E, where E can be seen as the
disjoint union of the fibers of the sheaf, that is, the punctual inverses p-1(x), where x Î X. The
sections of the sheaf are the neighborhood inverses p-1(O), where Oopen Í X. An understanding of
the sheaf combines thus two complementary approaches: vertical (fibers) and horizontal
(sections) (see Figure 4). The glueing (or, on the contrary, an eventual obstruction) of local
sections into global ones is the main objective of the theory. Sheaves abound in all mathematical
regions (geometrical, topological, differential, arithmetical, logical, etc.) Two paradigmatic
examples are the sheaf of germs of holomorphic functions (following Riemann-Poincaré-Cartan),
and the structural sheaf of a ring (following Galois-Dedekind-Grothendieck).

Figure 4
A sheaf: spaces, projection, fibers, sections


Generalizing and abstracting the topological concept of a sheaf, the construction of a topos
follows three basic steps (1)-(3):
• (1) an extended category-theoretic definition of a topology: over a category C, a
Grothendieck topology is given by coverings (collections of maps) J(U) for each object U
of the category, which are “well behaved” (an identity is a covering, covering of coverings
is a covering, pulling back a covering is a covering);
• (2) an extended category-theoretic definition of a sheaf: given a site (C,J) (i.e. a category
C with a Grothendieck topology J), a sheaf (initially defined over a topological space), can
now be described over a general site, through a universal $! (exists unique) definition;

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 • (3) a consideration of all such sheaves in a category-theoretic environment (topos):
Top(C,J) is by definition the category of all sheaves over the site (C,J), and the resulting
topos reveals deep structural properties (“exactness”: limits, completeness, cartesian
closure, classifier subobject, etc.) which were not present in the original topological space.
The situation can be graphically rendered in the following diagram (Figure 5):

Figure 5
Basic gesture of a topos

The mathematical “gesture” codified in Figure 5 corresponds to the musical gesture one of an
orchestra conductor: over (1) a given score (base space), all the (2) instruments (sheaves over the
base) develop the score, and become unified under (3) the baton of the director (topos, or
musical superstructure, in red). The elevation of the construction follows the path: (1) one (site)
® (2) many (sheaves) ® (3) one (topos). In this third level, emerges a profound mathematical
structure (transgressive, archetypal, META): a Grothendieck topos possesses all limits and co-limits
(is complete and co-complete), possesses generator and co-generator, and is well-powered and
co-well-powered. In the ascent from (1) the particular, to (2) the differential, and to (3) the
integral, toposes can be seen as sublimations of types, with a double connectivity between them:
(2) types are injected in (3) toposes, and (3) toposes are projected into (2) types. The
phenomenological (2) and the metaphysical (3) enter then in a rich back-and-forth between many
levels of knowledge. Mathematical cognition is related to a precise phenomenological cognition.
Depending on some additional structure on the sheaf fibers, the resulting categories of
sheaves may tend to be more “numerical” / “algebraical” (if the fibers are, for example, abelian
groups or rings), or more “spatial” / “geometrical” (if the fibers are just sets). In this way, in

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Grothendieck's words, emerges a “synthesis between two worlds, until then contiguous and
tightly solidary, but nevertheless separated: the «arithmetical» world, in which reside the so
called «spaces» without principle of continuity, and the world of continuous magnitudes, in which
reside the «spaces» in the proper sense of the term (...) In the new vision, those worlds separated
before, form only one” (Grothendieck, 1986, Preface, p. 30).
Thus, beyond separation, thanks to the abstraction (freeness, projectivity) provided by
sheaves, a new mathematical smoothness governs the interrelations between geometry and
arithmetic. Grothendieck's revolutionary space-number shift is both simple and extremely deep.
A double differential and integral process governs the situation: exploring multiplicity along all
sheaves, and threading unity along the exactness properties of the topos. From a semiotical and
philosophical perspective, the general method (closely related to the Pragmaticist Maxim, as we
will see in Section 5 below) is fascinating: to understand something, consider all possible points
of view, and search for a structural connection between them. Only then, you will be approaching
true knowledge, and, in particular, true mathematical cognition. On the other hand, a systematic
use of the liberty and multiplicity of Topos Theory in our ordinary life would have huge
consequences on tolerance, ethics, politics, and social action, since we would be able to destroy
the “Self” (just identities) in favor of the “Other” (map actions, representable functors,
presheaves, sheaves). It is an example of how high mathematical practice may transform our
everyday life, something well expressed independently, for example, in the Solidarnosc
movement (1980) or in the Black Lives Matter movement (2020).
Nice toposes with many applications to culture and society are the Toposes of Sheaves over
Kripke Models (TSK) (Zalamea, 2020). A Kripke model for (propositional) intuitionistic logic K can
be understood as ramified (non necessarily linear) time frame, with some coherence conditions:
propositional information grows over time, a contradiction ^ never holds at any time, negation
¬a is defined as a®^, satisfiability behaves classically for “or” / “and”, but acquires a new
meaning for “implication”, related to its “future” (that is, a®b holds at a time t if and only if "s³t
if a holds at time s then b holds at time s). Doing a small calculation, this forces ¬¬ ¹ id (in fact,
one can show that ¬¬a holds at a time t if and only if a holds densely in the future of t). Thus
¬¬ behaves as a non-trivial closure operator, inside the order topology on K. With this in mind,
one can then imagine all sheaves over the topological space (K,£), producing the topos of sheaves
over the Kripke model K.
In Figure 6 below, one can see how a model (TSK) integrates the fundamental forces of
mathematical thought (historicity, “unreasonable effectiveness” of mathematics applied to
science, phenomenological multiplicity, metaphysical unity), but also fights against any dogmatic
reductionism (that is, all strata are independent). A nice analogical example of a (TSK) is our
“topos of existence”: we take at the base the story of our life, and on each instant we situate the
fiber of our beliefs at that instant. Our life gives rise to local sections, usually non coherent, and
we enter into the constant contradictions of our existence. With some perspective, we ask

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ourselves if our permanent agitation, in childhood, adolescence, mature life, or old age, has had
any sense. We examine then if our local sections can be subsumed into a global property of the
topos which would offer some sense of transcendence for our being. A positive or negative
answer may plunge us in relative satisfaction or despair.

Figure 6
Topos of Sheaves over Kripke models. Model (TSK)


Many reflection layers are in play in the (TSK) model, between lower and higher structures,
extrinsic and intrinsic forces, types and archetypes. This continuous iteration may be seen as
closely related to the many interpretative layers present in the Pragmaticist Maxim (PM), and to
the continuous sem(e)iosis advocated by Peirce. Through (PM) we obtain a better cognition of
signs. In the same vein, we will propose (Sections 5, 6 below) that Topos Theory (TT) and,
particularly, the Toposes of Sheaves over Kripke Models (TSK), can help us to obtain a better
cognition of mathematics.

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4. GROTHENDIECK'S VIEWS ON MATHEMATICS

Récoltes et semailles (“Harvests and Seeds”; Grothendieck, 1986) wanders meticulously (1500
pages) around mathematical thought, and, particularly, around Grothendieck's own creative
paths in mathematics. The complexity of Récoltes et semailles reflects well the complexity of
mathematical cognition: (1) an understanding of mathematical understanding, in its eternal
(Kantian) fight between form (spaces, numbers, structures) and the formal (cohomologies,
motives, derivators), (2) a reflection on the access modes to that understanding, and, in
particular, on a naive access to invention (freshness, smoothness, childish vision), (3) a pondering
of the mathematical method, and, in particular, an analysis of the needed constraints of
perseverant work (tasks of the architect and the laborer), (4) a systematic study of the yin-yang
slopes of creativity, (5) a conceptual biography of the author, and a calibration of the social
context where it is inserted, (6) a criticism of degenerative processes in the Western World
(impressive anticipation of our present Ecological Crisis and Sanitary Crisis), (7) a web
construction of multi-temporal and multi-spatial stylistic strata, product of an open and
inquisitive mind. Beyond Poincaré's L'invention mathématique (Poincaré, 1908) –the other major
20th century reference around mathematical cognition–, Grothendieck delves into a multivalent
dialectics between the continuous and the discrete, magnitude and number, geometry and
arithmetic, and explores axiomatically a back-and-forth between Algebraic Geometry (1955-
1970: algebraic methods to understand space) and Topological Algebra (1980-1990: topological
methods to understand number). The recognition of structural and formal archetypes (K-theory
groups, toposes, motives, n-categories, derivators), and their projective distribution along many
diverse types (Weil conjectures, standard conjectures, anabelian conjectures), offer new
perspectives on the ways in which higher mathematical practice becomes intimately connected
with mathematical cognition.
Between the many insights offered by Grothendieck (1986), we emphasize here three main
ideas (Zalamea, 2019). First, mathematical cognition deals with a back-and-forth between
discovery and invention, where the two swings of the pendulum –a discovery of mathematical
structures, and an invention of languages which reveal them– are fundamental and irreducible
(Grothendieck, a fine musician, insisted always that he “heard” the structures “speaking” to him).
Second, mathematical cognition often works through a rising sea, by “immersion, absorption,
dissolution” (Grothendieck, 1986, Part 3, p. 553), thanks to Category Theory, where an object
(“nut”) is immersed in an adequate category (“sea”) which explains both its “real” behavior, and
the “ideal” phantasmata which surround the object (Yoneda's Lemma). Third, mathematical
cognition can profit from an analogical use of mathematical tools (combinatorics, elementary
geometry, group actions, Galois connections, homology, sheaves, Riemann surfaces) to
understand the very realm of mathematics (Grothendieck, 1986, Les portes sur l'univers,
Appendix to Récoltes et semailles, p. 1-127).

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 In fact, many of the tasks advanced in the brilliant Appendix Les portes sur l'univers can be
seen as glueings, inversions, stratifications, thresholds, symmetry breaks: (i) variations, degrees,
intensities between warm (yin) and cold (yang) (16-17: numbers in this paragraph refer to pages
in Les portes sur l'univers), (ii) inversions, through subgroup associations, between continent and
content, between abstraction (yang) and concretion (yin) (19-20), (iii) dialectics multiplicity-unity
(“I feel myself like a multiple in search of unity”, 23), (iv) diagrams (hexagons, icosahedrons, trees)
to capture yin/yang tonalities (28-32), (v) dynamics between the ideal (yang) and the real (yin)
(36-37), (vi) zigzag iterations and homologies between unity/mystery (yin) and order/simplicity
(yang) (37-40), (vii) fruitful tension between discovery (yin) and invention (yang) (47-51), (viii)
“accordion” between exterior (surface, light, yang) and interior (deepness, shadow, yin) (51-55),
etc. In all these processes, “the spirit, hurled in the pursuit of the elusive flesh of things, goes like
an Ahab after the White Whale” (66). The ever-growing Grothendieck search for mathematical
archetypes (Grothendieck's inequality, K-theory group, classifier topos, absolute Galois group,
universal homotopy, etc.) is reflected in the allusion to Moby-Dick, that major literary expression
of the never-ending quest for the metaphysical strata which govern our understanding of the
World.
Through Grothendieck, a major ontologico-mathematical inversion appears in
contemporary mathematics. The emergence of deep archetypical constructs in the technical
realms of Category Theory shows that, notwithstanding some naive illusions in analytical
philosophy, “metaphysics” has never been dead. On the contrary, many connections with
Leibniz's analysis situs and monads, with Galois' “métaphysique des équations”, with Riemann's
intuition of structural, complex-variable, unifying forces in mathematical physics, with Poincaré's
homotopical and homological invariants for topological spaces, with Gödel's efforts to prove the
existence of phantasmata (Cassou-Noguès, 2007) or the ontological existence of God (Gödel,
1970), with Grothendieck's thorough axiomatization of a full range of archetypes for the space-
number connection, show that a systematic quest for what lies “beyond”, what cannot be seen
through our “blind eyes” (Tarkovsky, 1984), has always been one of the main forces which propel
mathematical cognition. The fact that those systematic visions occur in higher mathematics has
been perhaps the basic obstruction which explains why the analytical philosophy of mathematics,
reduced to considerations on elementary mathematics and set-theoretic reconstructions, has
been naturally blind to those aspects of mathematical cognition. Thanks to Grothendieck and to
the enlargement of space-number obtained in Topos Theory, we are now situated in a richer
framework that includes non-standard, non-classical, non-essentialist perspectives, which allow
a larger and deeper comprehension of mathematical imagination and its stratified entangling
with our multiverse experience.

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5. MERGING PRAGMATICISM (PM) AND TOPOS THEORY (TT)

Peirce's Pragmaticist Maxim (PM), Category Theory (CT), Topos Theory (TT), and the Topos of
Sheaves over a Kripke Model (TSK), share many common features. Their fundamental core is to
understand a sign, concept, or object, through its conceivable, contextual, effects, either
semiotical (PM), relational (CT), archetypical (TT), or dynamical (TSK). A multi-dimensional, multi-
valued, multi-stratified, approach becomes mandatory, and our comprehension escapes
reductive frameworks (either classical or analytical). A relativization trend marks all these
perspectives, but they always possess a universalization counterpart: integrating the semiotic
differences through correlative interpretations (PM), capturing the back-and-forth between
universal ($!) definitions and concrete realizations (CT), projecting the archetypical exactness
properties of the topos onto the different sheaf types (TT), synthesizing the dynamical
development of time through the non-classical logics encrypted into the classifier object (TSK).
In short, a conceptual, abstract, differential and integral calculus governs the many layers of our
understanding, through a new notion of universal relative (see Figure 7).

Figure 7
Relative universals: a new life through (PM) and (CT)

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 An apparent contradiction lies in the terminology “universal relative”. In fact,
universalization has always been considered as an absolute, non-relative, process, but after
Gödel's Incompleteness Theorems (1931), it is well known that no absolute foundation for
mathematics is possible, and, a fortiori, no absolute foundation for knowledge is to be expected.
Thus, the universalization idea must be relativized, and cannot longer live in an impossible
Absolute. But the program of Category Theory consists precisely in obtaining universal, abstract,
non-absolute definitions of the usual, concrete, mathematical structures. In this sense, relative
universals do acquire a precise technical sense, and can consistently be thought, thanks to the
extremely precise axiomatics of the “categorical imperative” (CT) – (TT) – (TSK). On the other
hand, Peirce's maxim (PM) also points out to a general comprehension of particular signs, which
takes into account both their differential, concrete representations, and their integral, abstract,
correlations, glueings, and transfers (see Figure 1). As Pavel Florensky recalls, the etymological
analysis of “universal” comes from the merging “unum versus alia”, the One versus the Other
(Florenskij, 1914, p. 146). In a same vein, beyond multiplicity, a path to unity can be imagined,
following the merging (CT) – (TT) – (TSK) – (PM).
Iterating the sheaf theoretic methods to this very problematic, one can also think of further
glueings, or blendings, along the conceptual line (*): (CT) – (TT) – (TSK) – (PM). In fact, a quadruple
iteration –sheaves applied to sheaves applied to sheaves applied to sheaves– is here at stake: (1)
from a sheaf (S), we pass to (2) categories of sheaves (TT), to (3) categories of sheaves of sheaves
(TSK), to (4) sheaf theoretic expansions of the line (*), thanks to very general tools (CT, PM). In
this tendency towards a geometric multiplication of our understanding, all the different strata
provide interesting new paths: (1) a sheaf over (*) captures (CT), (TT), (TSK), (CT), as four different
fibers of knowledge, (2) a topos perspective multiplies those initial four-fibered sheaves through
imaginary global sections connecting them, (3) a Kripke-topos approach explores the dynamic
development of the connections obtained, (4) a global (CT, PM) reading integrates methods and
meta-methods in a coherent framework.
In practice, (1) if sheaves (S) capture local-global transits and obstructions, (S) applied to
the merging (*) offers a good method to assess the advantages and drawbacks of the “relative
universals” method; (2) if toposes (TT) synthesize type-archetype transits and obstructions, (TT)
applied to (*) can calibrate the extent of successes and failures in the dialectics relativization-
universalization; (3) if Kripke-toposes (TSK) detect cognition dynamics around time, (TSK) applied
to (*) reveals our crucial historical limitations; (4) if Category Theory (CT) and the Pragmaticist
Maxim (PM) underline the back-and-forth between the differential and the integral, (CT) and
(PM) applied to (*) strongly emphasize our need to ban any reductionist strategy in cognition.
The results (1)-(4) offer, in particular, some basic multi-layered levels required to express the
complex richness of mathematical cognition (see our next, final, Section 6).

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6. MATHEMATICAL COGNITION UNDER THE MERGING (CT) – (TT) – (TSK) – (PM)

Kant distinguishes the intelligible and the sensible through a dialectics between formal and form,
where a functional drive helps to understand form through the formal. But the dialectics remains
obscure, with all the deep forces of penumbrae beyond light (Zalamea, 2013). Already Pascal,
with his famous calembour “Heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing”, pointed out
to forms of intuition and sensibility that a purely formal treatment would never apprehend. In
Spanish, Pascal's limitation is well captured by an idiosyncracy of the language: “razón” = reason,
is contrasted with “corazón” = heart, with a full duality inscribed in Spanish thanks to the
(category-theoretic) prefix “co”. The wonderful equation (**) corazón = co-razón, is a unique
characteristic of the Spanish speaking realm and, better, of Hispanic America, extremely attentive
to the merging and blending of opposite cultural and sociological currents (Zalamea, 2000).
If we apply our vision (**) corazón = co-razón, to the line of knowledge studied above (*)
(CT) – (TT) – (TSK) – (PM), we obtain a fruitful inversion, or dual, of the perspectives in play. In
fact, beyond reasons (CT), (TT), (TSK), (PM), their obverses display some rich penumbrae of the
heart: (CT verso) thanks to Yoneda's Lemma (which may well be understood as the “heart” of
Category Theory, see Figure 8 below) one observes the emergence of “ideal” phantasmata
(presheaves) beyond “reality” (representable functors); (TT verso) thanks to the diverse logics
that may be embedded in the classifier subobject, the duals of the Heyting algebras of subobjects
(that is co-Heyting algebras) encapsulate the emergence of paraconsistent logics in the toposes,
allowing local contradictions without destroying the system; (TSK verso) thanks to the multiple
strata in the topos of dynamic sheaves, the double negation operator (in fact, a Lawvere's
elementary topology in the topos) discriminates actual (real) truth, and possible / dense
(imaginary) truth; (PM verso) thanks to a diagram of the Pragmaticist Maxim on a sheet (see
Figure 1), one can imagine the verso of the drawing (following Peirce's techniques in his
Existential Graphs, see (Zalamea, 2012)), which inverts the pendulum differential-integral, and
suggests that many differential reasons (analytical types) can be obtained as projections of
integral co-reasons (synthetic archetypes).
Both (*) and (* verso) can now be projected into many features of mathematical cognition.
First, L'invention mathématique (Poincaré, 1908), with its beautiful web of reasons (proof, order,
conscious work, voluntary efforts) and co-reasons (illumination, esthetic sense, harmony,
unsuspected liaisons), which help to calibrate mathematical creativity, can be seen as profound
psychological features of the human mind, capable both to explore lucis et umbrae, to construct
and deconstruct the positive and the negative, the classical and the non-classical, invariants and
variations, form abductions and formal deductions. Second, Peirce's views on mathematics
(Section 2 above), situating logic inside mathematics, contrary to foundationalist programs,
express well the aerial dialectics (*) – (* verso), where many trends in Category Theory and Topos
Theory explore the multifarious regions of mathematics, thinking in different universes for their

16
development, and looking for different mathematics in each arbitrary topos, well beyond the
topos of sets: castles firmly travel in the air (counterpart to (Murphey, 1961, p. 407)), without
any need to ground them. Third, Grothendieck's views on mathematics (Section 4 above),
emphasizing the emergence of “relative universals”, make a systematic use of dualities, where
the identity (* verso) = co–(*) becomes just a particular situation of much general cognition
“adjunctions”.

Figure 8
Yoneda's Lemma: the heart of (CT).
Lucis et umbrae: representable functors (hA) versus general presheaves (functors C ® Sets)

The general abstract strategies (*) / co–(*) can be concretely detailed along some
mathematical examples:
• Around the infinite, possibly the most important concept in mathematics, the line (*)
explains the initial structural role of the natural numbers (CT: via Lawvere's N.N.O, Natural
Numbers Object) in apprehending infinities, while its dual (* verso) is used in size
independence proofs (TT: following Freyd's use of Lawvere's elementary topology ¬¬,
proving for example the independence of the continuum hypothesis).
• Around the crucial construction of ideal structures in mathematical cognition (Hilbert,
1925), the line (*) offers clues on the "ideality" of concepts (aura of an object in CT,
archetypes in TT, general signs in PM), while (CT verso) explains the necessary appearance
of ideal constructions, thanks to Yoneda's Lemma and its fully general embedding of
(incomplete) discreteness into (complete) continuity.
• Around the basic space-number blending, the line (*) explores the multiplication of space
(toposes), while its dual (* verso) captures the multiplication of number (schemes).
• Around Grothendieck's duality invention / discovery for mathematical cognition, the line
(*) supports yang inventive architectures, while its dual (* verso) approaches better yin
discovery patterns.

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