James Hume (mathematician) James Hume (mathematician) James Hume (fl. 1639) was a Scottish mathematician. He is given credit for introducing the modern exponential notation, along with René Descartes. The son of David Hume of Godscroft, sometimes therefore called described as "Scotus Theagrius", James Hume lived in France. Theagrius was a pen-name used by his father, and has been thought a macaronic form of "Godscroft". Hume published a Hebrew grammar in Hamburg, in 1624. On the title-page of his "Pantaleonis Vaticinia Satyra", dated Rouen, 1633, Hume is called "Med. Doctor". The "Satyra" is a Latin romance, imitating John Barclay's "Argenis". It is an "elegant
Vincent Descombes the University of Chicago. Descombes was a member of the French libertarian socialist group Socialisme ou Barbarie. Vincent Descombes Vincent Descombes (; born 1943) is a French philosopher. His major work has been in the philosophy of language and philosophy of mind. Descombes is particularly noted for a lengthy critique in two volumes of the project he calls cognitivism, and which is, roughly, the view current in philosophy of mind that mental and psychological facts can ultimately be treated as, or reduced to, physical facts about the brain. Descombes has also written an introduction to modern French philosophy ("Le même