Probability Theory in the Religious-Doctrinal Disputes of Mathematicians
The article shows the transformation of the ideas of scientists about the feasibility of the use of mathematics in theological debates on a number of examples from the history of probability theory. Presented as an understanding of the foundations of the theory of probability in the 17th - 18th centuries, it was associated with religious and ideological convictions of eminent scientists J. Bernoulli, A. de Moivre, N. Bernoulli and P. S. Laplace. The history of the ideological and doctrinal conflict in the domestic mathematics of the early twentieth century is described - about the mystical interpretation of the theory of probability and such presentation of it in secondary schools. The arguments of P. A. Nekrasov, who promoted this project, are studied and the liberal-ideological and scientific-methodological arguments of A. A. Markov criticizing him are shown. It is shown that the religious and ideological beliefs of the participants in this educational and methodological dispute had a greater significance than the actual scientific arguments. The described example of the collision of conservative-orthodox and liberal-atheistic beliefs of the participants in that mathematical conflict demonstrates that when reconstructing the history of scientific ideas, it is necessary to take into account not only the logic of their development, but the religious, ideological and doctrinal preferences of scientists.