Who started the Euclid myth?
The Euclid myth is described by Davis and Hersh as the view that “the books of Euclid contain truths about the universe which are clear and indubitable.” The claim of indubitability (or certainty) plays an important role in sixteenth-century discussions of mathematics in which the influence of Proclus’ commentary on the Elements is apparent and in later texts which seem to descend in some way from those discussions. The assertion that mathematics is certain can be traced back to Averroes and probably to earlier Islamic philosophers. I argue that there is no good ground for assigning the propagation of the Euclid myth to either the author of the Elements or to Plato or Aristotle or even to Proclus. An important historical factor in its propagation was a misunderstanding of the Greek word for exactness or precision, akribeia, although doubtless other factors (e.g., changes in the character of mathematics, the rise of modern skepticism) were involved as well.
