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A subject with no object: strategies for nominalistic interpretation of mathematics

New York: Oxford University Press. Edited by Gideon A. Rosen (1997)

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  1. Mathematics and bleak house.John P. Burgess - 2004 - Philosophia Mathematica 12 (1):18-36.
    The form of nominalism known as 'mathematical fictionalism' is examined and found wanting, mainly on grounds that go back to an early antinominalist work of Rudolf Carnap that has unfortunately not been paid sufficient attention by more recent writers.
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  • Stipulation, logic, and ontological independence.Jody Azzouni - 2000 - Philosophia Mathematica 8 (3):225-243.
    A distinction between the epistemic practices in mathematics and in the empirical sciences is rehearsed to motivate the epistemic role puzzle. This is distinguished both from Benacerraf's 1973 epistemic puzzle and from sceptical arguments against our knowledge of an external world. The stipulationist position is described, a position which can address this puzzle. Methods of avoiding the stipulationist position by using pure logic to provide knowledge of mathematical abstracta are discussed and criticized.
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  • Immanence in Abundance.Chad Carmichael - 2022 - Erkenntnis 89 (4):1535-1553.
    In this paper, I develop a theory on which each of a thing’s abundant properties is immanent in that thing. On the version of the theory I will propose, universals are abundant, each instantiated universal is immanent, and each uninstantiated universal is such that it could have been instantiated, in which case it would have been immanent. After setting out the theory, I will defend it from David Lewis’s argument that such a combination of immanence and abundance is absurd. I (...)
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  • Something is true.Jamin Asay - 2021 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 105 (3):687-705.
    The thesis that nothing is true has long been thought to be a self-refuting position not worthy of serious philosophical consideration. Recently, however, the thesis of alethic nihilism—that nothing is true—has been explicitly defended (notably by David Liggins). Nihilism is also, I argue, a consequence of other views about truth that have recently been advocated, such as fictionalism about truth and the inconsistency account. After offering an account of alethic nihilism, and how it purports to avoid the self-refutation problem, I (...)
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  • Naturalism and Non-Qualitative Properties.Sam Cowling - 2020 - In Luis R. G. Oliveira & Kevin Corcoran (eds.), Common Sense Metaphysics: Essays in Honor of Lynne Rudder Baker. New York, NY: Routledge. pp. 209-238.
    Lynne Baker’s case for the incompatibility of naturalism with the first-person perspective raises a range of questions about the relationship between naturalism and the various properties involved in first-person perspectives. After arguing that non-qualitative properties—most notably, haecceities like being Lynne Baker—are ineliminably tied to first-person perspectives, this paper considers whether naturalism and non-qualitative properties are, in fact, compatible. In doing so, the discussion focus on Shamik Dasupgta’s argument against individuals and, in turn, non-qualitative properties. Several strategies for undermining Dasgupta's argument (...)
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  • Fictionalism and Meinongianism.Nathaniel Gan - 2021 - Theoria : An International Journal for Theory, History and Fundations of Science 36 (1):49-62.
    Fictionalism about a kind of disputed object is often motivated by the fact that the view interprets discourse about those objects literally without an ontological commitment to them. This paper argues that this motivation is inadequate because some viable alternatives to fictionalism have similar attractions. Meinongianism—the view that there are true statements about non-existent objects—is one such view. Meinongianism bears significant similarity to fictionalism, so intuitive doubts about its viability are difficult to sustain for fictionalists. Moreover, Meinongianism avoids some of (...)
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  • How to be a compatibilist in metaphysics: The epistemic strategy.Massimiliano Carrara & Vittorio Morato - forthcoming - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy:1-25.
    Conflicts between our best philosophical theories (BPTs) and our common beliefs are widespread. For example, if eliminativism is our BPT, then our BPT conflicts with common beliefs about the existence of middle-sized composite artifacts. “Compatibilism” is the name usually given to a theoretical attitude, according to which, in the case of a conflict between BPT and a common belief P, we should try to find a reconciliation. The two major variants of compatibilism are “semantic compatibilism” (SC) and “cognitive compatibilism” (CC). (...)
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  • ¿De qué se trata la matemática?Gustavo Esteban Romero - 2020 - Scientia in Verba Magazine 6 (1):60-64.
    Las teorías que usamos para representar el mundo pueden ser extremadamente complejas. Abordan temas tales como electrones, campos cuánticos, estrellas de neutrones, materia oscura, redes neuronales, mercados económicos, la atmósfera y muchas otras entidades que suponemos existen en el universo. Al formular nuestras teorías, recurrimos a lenguajes exactos que nos permiten minimizar la vaguedad y expresarnos lo más precisa y cuantitativamente posible. Recurrimos a la matemática. Cuando formulamos nuestras teorías fácticas en lenguaje matemático, estas se refieren no solamente a objetos (...)
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  • Introducción a la Ontología.Axel Barceló - manuscript
    Intuitivamente, la realidad está formada por entidades y hechos existentes y concretos. Sin embargo, nuestro lenguaje y pensamiento versa también sobre hechos meramente posibles, sobre cosas inexistentes y entidades abstractas. ¿Cómo es esto posible? ¿Significa ello que cuando hablamos y pensamos de estas otras cosas no hablamos de nada real? ¿o mas bien la realidad está mas poblada de lo que pensábamos y hay diferentes maneras de formar parte de la realidad además de la de existir de manera positiva y (...)
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  • To Shape a New World, Tommie Shelby and Brandon Terry.Myisha Cherry - 2020 - Mind 129 (514):656-664.
    To Shape a New World, ShelbyTommie and TerryBrandon. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2018. Pp. x + 449.
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  • On the Varieties of Abstract Objects.James E. Davies - 2019 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 97 (4):809-823.
    I reconcile the spatiotemporal location of repeatable artworks and impure sets with the non-location of natural numbers despite all three being varieties of abstract objects. This is possible because, while the identity conditions for all three can be given by abstraction principles, in the former two cases spatiotemporal location is a congruence for the equivalence relation featuring in the relevant principle, whereas in the latter it is not. I then generalize this to other ‘physical’ properties like shape, mass, and causal (...)
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  • Relativity and the Causal Efficacy of Abstract Objects.Tim Juvshik - 2020 - American Philosophical Quarterly 57 (3):269-282.
    Abstract objects are standardly taken to be causally inert, however principled arguments for this claim are rarely given. As a result, a number of recent authors have claimed that abstract objects are causally efficacious. These authors take abstracta to be temporally located in order to enter into causal relations but lack a spatial location. In this paper, I argue that such a position is untenable by showing first that causation requires its relata to have a temporal location, but second, that (...)
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  • Mathematical Abstraction, Conceptual Variation and Identity.Jean-Pierre Marquis - 2014 - In Peter Schroeder-Heister, Gerhard Heinzmann, Wilfred Hodges & Pierre Edouard Bour (eds.), Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science, Proceedings of the 14th International Congress. London, UK: pp. 299-322.
    One of the key features of modern mathematics is the adoption of the abstract method. Our goal in this paper is to propose an explication of that method that is rooted in the history of the subject.
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  • Deflationary Nominalism and Puzzle Avoidance.David Mark Kovacs - 2019 - Philosophia Mathematica 27 (1):88-104.
    In a series of works, Jody Azzouni has defended deflationary nominalism, the view that certain sentences quantifying over mathematical objects are literally true, although such objects do not exist. One alleged attraction of this view is that it avoids various philosophical puzzles about mathematical objects. I argue that this thought is misguided. I first develop an ontologically neutral counterpart of Field’s reliability challenge and argue that deflationary nominalism offers no distinctive answer to it. I then show how this reasoning generalizes (...)
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  • Hilary Putnam on the philosophy of logic and mathematics.José Miguel Sagüillo - 2018 - Theoria : An International Journal for Theory, History and Fundations of Science 33 (2):183-200.
    I discuss Putnam’s conception of logical truth as grounded in his picture of mathematical practice and ontology. i begin by comparing Putnam’s 1971 Philosophy of Logic with Quine’s homonymous book. Next, Putnam’s changing views on modality are surveyed, moving from the modal pre-formal to the de-modalized formal characterization of logical validity. Section three suggests a complementary view of Platonism and modalism underlying different stages of a dynamic mathematical practice. The final section argues for the pervasive platonistic conception of the working (...)
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  • Fictionalism about musical works.Anton Killin - 2018 - Canadian Journal of Philosophy 48 (2):266-291.
    The debate concerning the ontological status of musical works is perhaps the most animated debate in contemporary analytic philosophy of music. In my view, progress requires a piecemeal approach. So in this article I hone in on one particular musical work concept – that of the classical Western art musical work; that is, the work concept that regulates classical art-musical practice. I defend a fictionalist analysis – a strategy recently suggested by Andrew Kania as potentially fruitful – and I develop (...)
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  • Abstract Objects, Causal Efficacy, and Causal Exclusion.Tim Juvshik - 2018 - Erkenntnis 83 (4):805-827.
    objects are standardly taken to be causally inert, but this claim is rarely explicitly argued for. In the context of his platonism about musical works, in order for musical works to be audible, Julian Dodd argues that abstracta are causally efficacious in virtue of their concrete tokens participating in events. I attempt to provide a principled argument for the causal inertness of abstracta by first rejecting Dodd’s arguments from events, and then extending and generalizing the causal exclusion argument to the (...)
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  • From Mathematical Fictionalism to Truth‐Theoretic Fictionalism.Bradley Armour-Garb & James A. Woodbridge - 2014 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 88 (1):93-118.
    We argue that if Stephen Yablo (2005) is right that philosophers of mathematics ought to endorse a fictionalist view of number-talk, then there is a compelling reason for deflationists about truth to endorse a fictionalist view of truth-talk. More specifically, our claim will be that, for deflationists about truth, Yablo’s argument for mathematical fictionalism can be employed and mounted as an argument for truth-theoretic fictionalism.
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  • Mathematics, Morality, and Self‐Effacement.Jack Woods - 2016 - Noûs 52 (1):47-68.
    I argue that certain species of belief, such as mathematical, logical, and normative beliefs, are insulated from a form of Harman-style debunking argument whereas moral beliefs, the primary target of such arguments, are not. Harman-style arguments have been misunderstood as attempts to directly undermine our moral beliefs. They are rather best given as burden-shifting arguments, concluding that we need additional reasons to maintain our moral beliefs. If we understand them this way, then we can see why moral beliefs are vulnerable (...)
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  • Sider on the Epistemology of Structure.Jared Warren - 2016 - Philosophical Studies 173 (9):2417-2435.
    Theodore Sider’s recent book, “Writing the Book of the World”, employs a primitive notion of metaphysical structure in order to make sense of substantive metaphysics. But Sider and others who employ metaphysical primitives face serious epistemological challenges. In the first section I develop a specific form of this challenge for Sider’s own proposed epistemology for structure; the second section develops a general reliability challenge for Sider’s theory; and the third and final section argues for the rejection of Siderean structure in (...)
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  • Non‐Factualism Versus Nominalism.Matteo Plebani - 2017 - Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 98 (3).
    The platonism/nominalism debate in the philosophy of mathematics concerns the question whether numbers and other mathematical objects exist. Platonists believe the answer to be in the positive, nominalists in the negative. According to non-factualists, the question is ‘moot’, in the sense that it lacks a correct answer. Elaborating on ideas from Stephen Yablo, this article articulates a non-factualist position in the philosophy of mathematics and shows how the case for non-factualism entails that standard arguments for rival positions fail. In particular, (...)
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  • Fictionalism.Fiora Salis - 2015 - Online Companion to Problems in Analytic Philosophy.
    In this entry I will offer a survey of the contemporary debate on fic- tionalism, which is a distinctive anti-realist view about certain regions of discourse that are valued for their usefulness rather than their truth.
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  • Fictionalism About Fictional Characters Revisited.Stuart Brock - 2016 - Res Philosophica 93 (2):377-403.
    Fictionalism about fictional characters is a view according to which all claims ostensibly about fictional characters are in fact claims about the content of a story. Claims that appear to refer to or quantify over fictional objects contain an implicit prefix of the form “according to such-and-such story. In.
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  • Modal Platonism: an Easy Way to Avoid Ontological Commitment to Abstract Entities.Joel I. Friedman - 2005 - Journal of Philosophical Logic 34 (3):227-273.
    Modal Platonism utilizes "weak" logical possibility, such that it is logically possible there are abstract entities, and logically possible there are none. Modal Platonism also utilizes a non-indexical actuality operator. Modal Platonism is the EASY WAY, neither reductionist nor eliminativist, but embracing the Platonistic language of abstract entities while eliminating ontological commitment to them. Statement of Modal Platonism. Any consistent statement B ontologically committed to abstract entities may be replaced by an empirically equivalent modalization, MOD(B), not so ontologically committed. This (...)
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  • Structuring Logical Space.Alejandro Pérez Carballo - 2014 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 92 (2):460-491.
    I develop a non-representationalist account of mathematical thought, on which the point of mathematical theorizing is to provide us with the conceptual capacity to structure and articulate information about the physical world in an epistemically useful way. On my view, accepting a mathematical theory is not a matter of having a belief about some subject matter; it is rather a matter of structuring logical space, in a sense to be made precise. This provides an elegant account of the cognitive utility (...)
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  • A Cognitive Approach to Benacerraf's Dilemma.Luke Jerzykiewicz - 2009 - Dissertation, University of Western Ontario
    One of the important challenges in the philosophy of mathematics is to account for the semantics of sentences that express mathematical propositions while simultaneously explaining our access to their contents. This is Benacerraf’s Dilemma. In this dissertation, I argue that cognitive science furnishes new tools by means of which we can make progress on this problem. The foundation of the solution, I argue, must be an ontologically realist, albeit non-platonist, conception of mathematical reality. The semantic portion of the problem can (...)
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  • The Iterative Conception of Set: a (Bi-)Modal Axiomatisation.J. P. Studd - 2013 - Journal of Philosophical Logic 42 (5):1-29.
    The use of tensed language and the metaphor of set ‘formation’ found in informal descriptions of the iterative conception of set are seldom taken at all seriously. Both are eliminated in the nonmodal stage theories that formalise this account. To avoid the paradoxes, such accounts deny the Maximality thesis, the compelling thesis that any sets can form a set. This paper seeks to save the Maximality thesis by taking the tense more seriously than has been customary (although not literally). A (...)
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  • Dummett on abstract objects.George Duke - 2012 - New York: Palgrave-Macmillan.
    This book offers an historically-informed critical assessment of Dummett's account of abstract objects, examining in detail some of the Fregean presuppositions whilst also engaging with recent work on the problem of abstract entities.
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  • Indexing and Mathematical Explanation.Alan Baker & Mark Colyvan - 2011 - Philosophia Mathematica 19 (3):323-334.
    We discuss a recent attempt by Chris Daly and Simon Langford to do away with mathematical explanations of physical phenomena. Daly and Langford suggest that mathematics merely indexes parts of the physical world, and on this understanding of the role of mathematics in science, there is no need to countenance mathematical explanation of physical facts. We argue that their strategy is at best a sketch and only looks plausible in simple cases. We also draw attention to how frequently Daly and (...)
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  • Of Numbers and Electrons.Cian Dorr - 2010 - Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 110 (2pt2):133-181.
    According to a tradition stemming from Quine and Putnam, we have the same broadly inductive reason for believing in numbers as we have for believing in electrons: certain theories that entail that there are numbers are better, qua explanations of our evidence, than any theories that do not. This paper investigates how modal theories of the form ‘Possibly, the concrete world is just as it in fact is and T’ and ‘Necessarily, if standard mathematics is true and the concrete world (...)
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  • What anti-realism in philosophy of mathematics must offer.Feng Ye - 2010 - Synthese 175 (1):13 - 31.
    This article attempts to motivate a new approach to anti-realism (or nominalism) in the philosophy of mathematics. I will explore the strongest challenges to anti-realism, based on sympathetic interpretations of our intuitions that appear to support realism. I will argue that the current anti-realistic philosophies have not yet met these challenges, and that is why they cannot convince realists. Then, I will introduce a research project for a new, truly naturalistic, and completely scientific approach to philosophy of mathematics. It belongs (...)
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  • Causal Fictionalism.Antony Eagle - 2024 - In Yafeng Shan (ed.), Alternative Philosophical Approaches to Causation: Beyond Difference-making and Mechanism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
    Causation appears to present us with an interpretative difficulty. While arguably a redundant relation given fundamental physics, it is nevertheless apparently pragmatically indispensable. This chapter revisits certain arguments made previously by the author for these claims with the benefit of hindsight, starting with the role of causal models in the human sciences, and attempting to explain why it is not possible to straightforwardly ground such models in fundamental physics. This suggests that further constraints, going beyond physics, are needed to legitimate (...)
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  • How Not to Enhance the Indispensability Argument.Russell Marcus - 2014 - Philosophia Mathematica 22 (3):345-360.
    The new explanatory or enhanced indispensability argument alleges that our mathematical beliefs are justified by their indispensable appearances in scientific explanations. This argument differs from the standard indispensability argument which focuses on the uses of mathematics in scientific theories. I argue that the new argument depends for its plausibility on an equivocation between two senses of explanation. On one sense the new argument is an oblique restatement of the standard argument. On the other sense, it is vulnerable to an instrumentalist (...)
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  • Stevin Numbers and Reality.Karin Usadi Katz & Mikhail G. Katz - 2012 - Foundations of Science 17 (2):109-123.
    We explore the potential of Simon Stevin’s numbers, obscured by shifting foundational biases and by 19th century developments in the arithmetisation of analysis.
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  • On representationalism, common-factorism, and whether consciousness is here and now.Pär Sundström - 2018 - Philosophical Studies:1-12.
    A strong form of representationalism says that every conscious property of every mental state can be identified with some part of the state’s representational properties. A weaker representationalism says that some conscious property of some mental state can be identified with some part of the state’s representational properties. David Papineau has recently argued that all such theories are incorrect since they construe consciousness as consisting in “relations to propositions or other abstract objects outside space and time”, whereas consciousness is “concrete” (...)
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  • Logical Consequence for Nominalists.Marcus Rossberg & Daniel Cohnitz - 2009 - Theoria 24 (2):147-168.
    It is often claimed that nominalistic programmes to reconstruct mathematics fail, since they will at some point involve the notion of logical consequence which is unavailable to the nominalist. In this paper we use an idea of Goodman and Quine to develop a nominalistically acceptable explication of logical consequence.
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  • Labyrinth of Continua.Patrick Reeder - 2018 - Philosophia Mathematica 26 (1):1-39.
    This is a survey of the concept of continuity. Efforts to explicate continuity have produced a plurality of philosophical conceptions of continuity that have provably distinct expressions within contemporary mathematics. I claim that there is a divide between the conceptions that treat the whole continuum as prior to its parts, and those conceptions that treat the parts of the continuum as prior to the whole. Along this divide, a tension emerges between those conceptions that favor philosophical idealizations of continuity and (...)
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  • Generality, Extensibility, and Paradox.J. P. Studd - 2017 - Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 117 (1):81-101.
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  • There is No Easy Road to Nominalism.M. Colyvan - 2010 - Mind 119 (474):285-306.
    Hartry Field has shown us a way to be nominalists: we must purge our scientific theories of quantification over abstracta and we must prove the appropriate conservativeness results. This is not a path for the faint hearted. Indeed, the substantial technical difficulties facing Field's project have led some to explore other, easier options. Recently, Jody Azzouni, Joseph Melia, and Stephen Yablo have argued that it is a mistake to read our ontological commitments simply from what the quantifiers of our best (...)
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  • Epistemology versus Non-Causal Realism.Jared Warren - 2017 - Synthese 194 (5).
    This paper formulates a general epistemological argument against what I call non-causal realism, generalizing domain specific arguments by Benacerraf, Field, and others. First I lay out the background to the argument, making a number of distinctions that are sometimes missed in discussions of epistemological arguments against realism. Then I define the target of the argument—non-causal realism—and argue that any non-causal realist theory, no matter the subject matter, cannot be given a reasonable epistemology and so should be rejected. Finally I discuss (...)
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  • Why deflationary nominalists shouldn’t be agnostics.Jody Azzouni - 2015 - Philosophical Studies 172 (5):1143-1161.
    A feature of agnostic views—views that officially express ignorance about the existence of something —is that they are widely perceived to be epistemically more cautious than views that are committed to the entities in question. This is often seen as giving agnostics a debating advantage: all things being equal, fence-sitters have smaller argumentative burdens. Otávio Bueno argues in this way for what he calls “agnostic nominalism,” the view that we don’t know whether ontologically-independent Platonic objects exist. I show that agnostic (...)
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  • Lógica e Completude.Arno A. Viero - 2001 - Princípios 8 (10):07-24.
    Quine, em seu livro Philosophy of Logic, identifica lógica com lógica de primeira ordem e defende a concepçáo segundo a qual a completude é uma propriedade necessária dos sistemas lógicos. O objetivo deste trabalho é discutir a argumentaçáo de Quine e mostrar que suas idéias a respeito da natureza da lógica apresentam diversos problemas tanto conceituais, como técnicos.
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  • Abstract Objects: A Case Study.Stephen Yablo - 2002 - Noûs 36 (s1):220 - 240.
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  • Plural quantification logic: A critical appraisal.Hanoch Ben-Yami - 2009 - Review of Symbolic Logic 2 (1):208-232.
    I first show that most authors who developed Plural Quantification Logic (PQL) argued it could capture various features of natural language better than can other logic systems. I then show that it fails to do so: it radically departs from natural language in two of its essential features; namely, in distinguishing plural from singular quantification and in its use of an relation. Next, I sketch a different approach that is more adequate than PQL for capturing plural aspects of natural language (...)
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  • On the Interplay between Logic and Metaphysics.Achille C. Varzi - 2009 - Linguistic and Philosophical Investigations 8:13-36.
    On the one hand, logic has (or ought to have) nothing to do with metaphysics; it ought to have nothing to do with questions concerning what there is, or whether there is anything at all. On the other hand, metaphysics can hardly get off the ground without the help of logical analysis; to be is to be a truth-maker, and the search for truth-makers requires that we lay open the logical structure of our language. So something’s gotta give: either logical (...)
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  • Abstract Objects: A Case Study.Stephen Yablo - 2002 - Philosophical Issues 12 (1):220-240.
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  • What Should a Correspondence Theory Be and Do?Patricia Marino - 2006 - Philosophical Studies 127 (3):415-457.
    Correspondence theories are frequently either too vaguely expressed – “true statements correspond to the way things are in the world,” or implausible – “true statements mirror raw, mind-independent reality.” I address this problem by developing features and roles that ought to characterize what I call ldquo;modest” correspondence theories. Of special importance is the role of correspondence in directing our responses to cases of suspected non-factuality; lack of straightforward correspondence shows the need for, and guides us in our choice of, various (...)
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  • Think about the Consequences! Nominalism and the Argument from the Philosophy of Logic.Torsten Wilholt - 2006 - Dialectica 60 (2):115-133.
    Nominalism faces the task of explaining away the ontological commitments of applied mathematical statements. This paper reviews an argument from the philosophy of logic that focuses on this task and which has been used as an objection to certain specific formulations of nominalism. The argument as it is developed in this paper aims to show that nominalism in general does not have the epistemological advantages its defendants claim it has. I distinguish between two strategies that are available to the nominalist: (...)
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  • The Magic of Holes.Achille C. Varzi - 2019 - In Pina Marsico & Luca Tateo (eds.), (eds.), Ordinary Things and Their Extraordinary Meanings, Charlotte (NC),. Information Age Publishing. pp. 21-33.
    There is no doughnut without a hole, the saying goes. And that’s true. If you think you can come up with an exception, it simply wouldn’t be a doughnut. Holeless doughnuts are like extensionless color, or durationless sound—nonsense. Does it follow, then, that when we buy a doughnut we really purchase two sorts of thing—the edible stuff plus the little chunk of void in the middle? Surely we cannot just take the doughnut and leave the hole at the grocery store, (...)
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  • Objectivity without objects: a Priorian program.James Van Cleve - 2016 - Synthese 193 (11):3535-3549.
    The issues I explore in this paper are best introduced by the table with which it begins. The left-hand entry in each row gives expression to a kind objectivity; the right-hand entry affirms the existence of a special kind of object. When philosophers believe in any of the entities on the right, it is typically because they think them necessary to ground the facts on the left. By the same token, when philosophers deny any of the facts on the left, (...)
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