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  1. Kneebone and Lakatos: at the roots of a dialectical philosophy of mathematics.Fenner Tanswell, Brendan Larvor & Colin Jakob Rittberg - forthcoming - Hopos: The Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science.
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  • Mathematical Method and Proof.Jeremy Avigad - 2006 - Synthese 153 (1):105-159.
    On a traditional view, the primary role of a mathematical proof is to warrant the truth of the resulting theorem. This view fails to explain why it is very often the case that a new proof of a theorem is deemed important. Three case studies from elementary arithmetic show, informally, that there are many criteria by which ordinary proofs are valued. I argue that at least some of these criteria depend on the methods of inference the proofs employ, and that (...)
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  • Pluralism in Mathematics: A New Position in Philosophy of Mathematics.Michèle Friend - 2013 - Dordrecht, Netherland: Springer.
    The pluralist sheds the more traditional ideas of truth and ontology. This is dangerous, because it threatens instability of the theory. To lend stability to his philosophy, the pluralist trades truth and ontology for rigour and other ‘fixtures’. Fixtures are the steady goal posts. They are the parts of a theory that stay fixed across a pair of theories, and allow us to make translations and comparisons. They can ultimately be moved, but we tend to keep them fixed temporarily. Apart (...)
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  • International Handbook of Research in History, Philosophy and Science Teaching.Michael R. Matthews (ed.) - 2014 - Springer.
    This inaugural handbook documents the distinctive research field that utilizes history and philosophy in investigation of theoretical, curricular and pedagogical issues in the teaching of science and mathematics. It is contributed to by 130 researchers from 30 countries; it provides a logically structured, fully referenced guide to the ways in which science and mathematics education is, informed by the history and philosophy of these disciplines, as well as by the philosophy of education more generally. The first handbook to cover the (...)
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  • An Aristotelian Realist Philosophy of Mathematics: Mathematics as the science of quantity and structure.James Franklin - 2014 - London and New York: Palgrave MacMillan.
    An Aristotelian Philosophy of Mathematics breaks the impasse between Platonist and nominalist views of mathematics. Neither a study of abstract objects nor a mere language or logic, mathematics is a science of real aspects of the world as much as biology is. For the first time, a philosophy of mathematics puts applied mathematics at the centre. Quantitative aspects of the world such as ratios of heights, and structural ones such as symmetry and continuity, are parts of the physical world and (...)
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  • Non-deductive Logic in Mathematics: The Probability of Conjectures.James Franklin - 2013 - In Andrew Aberdein & Ian J. Dove (eds.), The Argument of Mathematics. Dordrecht, Netherland: Springer. pp. 11--29.
    Mathematicians often speak of conjectures, yet unproved, as probable or well-confirmed by evidence. The Riemann Hypothesis, for example, is widely believed to be almost certainly true. There seems no initial reason to distinguish such probability from the same notion in empirical science. Yet it is hard to see how there could be probabilistic relations between the necessary truths of pure mathematics. The existence of such logical relations, short of certainty, is defended using the theory of logical probability (or objective Bayesianism (...)
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  • Resources for Research on Analogy: A Multi-disciplinary Guide.Marcello Guarini, Amy Butchart, Paul Simard Smith & Andrei Moldovan - 2009 - Informal Logic 29 (2):84-197.
    Work on analogy has been done from a number of disciplinary perspectives throughout the history of Western thought. This work is a multidisciplinary guide to theorizing about analogy. It contains 1,406 references, primarily to journal articles and monographs, and primarily to English language material. classical through to contemporary sources are included. The work is classified into eight different sections (with a number of subsections). A brief introduction to each section is provided. Keywords and key expressions of importance to research on (...)
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  • Deleuze and Mathematics.Simon B. Duffy - 2006 - In Simon Duffy (ed.), Virtual Mathematics: the logic of difference. Clinamen.
    The collection Virtual Mathematics: the logic of difference brings together a range of new philosophical engagements with mathematics, using the work of French philosopher Gilles Deleuze as its focus. Deleuze’s engagements with mathematics rely upon the construction of alternative lineages in the history of mathematics in order to reconfigure particular philosophical problems and to develop new concepts. These alternative conceptual histories also challenge some of the self-imposed limits of the discipline of mathematics, and suggest the possibility of forging new connections (...)
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  • Tools, Objects, and Chimeras: Connes on the Role of Hyperreals in Mathematics.Vladimir Kanovei, Mikhail G. Katz & Thomas Mormann - 2013 - Foundations of Science 18 (2):259-296.
    We examine some of Connes’ criticisms of Robinson’s infinitesimals starting in 1995. Connes sought to exploit the Solovay model S as ammunition against non-standard analysis, but the model tends to boomerang, undercutting Connes’ own earlier work in functional analysis. Connes described the hyperreals as both a “virtual theory” and a “chimera”, yet acknowledged that his argument relies on the transfer principle. We analyze Connes’ “dart-throwing” thought experiment, but reach an opposite conclusion. In S , all definable sets of reals are (...)
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  • How to think about informal proofs.Brendan Larvor - 2012 - Synthese 187 (2):715-730.
    It is argued in this study that (i) progress in the philosophy of mathematical practice requires a general positive account of informal proof; (ii) the best candidate is to think of informal proofs as arguments that depend on their matter as well as their logical form; (iii) articulating the dependency of informal inferences on their content requires a redefinition of logic as the general study of inferential actions; (iv) it is a decisive advantage of this conception of logic that it (...)
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  • Review of S. Duffy, Virtual Mathematics: the Logic of Difference (Clinamen, 2006). [REVIEW]Colin McLarty - 2008 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 86 (2):332-336.
    This book is important for philosophy of mathematics and for the study of French philosophy. French philosophers are more concerned than most Anglo-American with mathematical practice outside of foundations. This contradicts the fashionable claim that French intellectuals get science all wrong and we return below to a germane example from Sokal and Bricmont [1999]. The emphasis on practice goes back to mid-20th century French historians of science including those Kuhn cites as sources for his orientation in philosophy of science [Kuhn (...)
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  • Probabilistic proofs and transferability.Kenny Easwaran - 2009 - Philosophia Mathematica 17 (3):341-362.
    In a series of papers, Don Fallis points out that although mathematicians are generally unwilling to accept merely probabilistic proofs, they do accept proofs that are incomplete, long and complicated, or partly carried out by computers. He argues that there are no epistemic grounds on which probabilistic proofs can be rejected while these other proofs are accepted. I defend the practice by presenting a property I call ‘transferability’, which probabilistic proofs lack and acceptable proofs have. I also consider what this (...)
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  • Mathematics and argumentation.Andrew Aberdein - 2009 - Foundations of Science 14 (1-2):1-8.
    Some authors have begun to appeal directly to studies of argumentation in their analyses of mathematical practice. These include researchers from an impressively diverse range of disciplines: not only philosophy of mathematics and argumentation theory, but also psychology, education, and computer science. This introduction provides some background to their work.
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  • Mathematical Kinds, or Being Kind to Mathematics.David Corfield - 2004 - Philosophica 74 (2).
    In 1908, Henri Poincar? claimed that: ...the mathematical facts worthy of being studied are those which, by their analogy with other facts, are capable of leading us to the knowledge of a mathematical law, just as experimental facts lead us to the knowledge of a physical law. They are those which reveal to us unsuspected kinship between other facts, long known, but wrongly believed to be strangers to one another. Towards the end of the twentieth century, with many more mathematical (...)
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  • A Critique of a Formalist-Mechanist Version of the Justification of Arguments in Mathematicians' Proof Practices.Yehuda Rav - 2007 - Philosophia Mathematica 15 (3):291-320.
    In a recent article, Azzouni has argued in favor of a version of formalism according to which ordinary mathematical proofs indicate mechanically checkable derivations. This is taken to account for the quasi-universal agreement among mathematicians on the validity of their proofs. Here, the author subjects these claims to a critical examination, recalls the technical details about formalization and mechanical checking of proofs, and illustrates the main argument with aanalysis of examples. In the author's view, much of mathematical reasoning presents genuine (...)
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  • Lakatosian and Euclidean populations: a pluralist approach to conceptual change in mathematics.Matteo De Benedetto - 2023 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 13 (3):1-25.
    Lakatos’ (Lakatos, 1976) model of mathematical conceptual change has been criticized for neglecting the diversity of dynamics exhibited by mathematical concepts. In this work, I will propose a pluralist approach to mathematical change that re-conceptualizes Lakatos’ model of proofs and refutations as an ideal dynamic that mathematical concepts can exhibit to different degrees with respect to multiple dimensions. Drawing inspiration from Godfrey-Smith’s (Godfrey-Smith, 2009) population-based Darwinism, my proposal will be structured around the notion of a conceptual population, the opposition between (...)
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  • Confirming Mathematical Conjectures by Analogy.Francesco Nappo, Nicolò Cangiotti & Caterina Sisti - 2024 - Erkenntnis 89 (6):2493-2519.
    Analogy has received attention as a form of inductive reasoning in the empirical sciences. Its role in mathematics has, instead, received less consideration. This paper provides a novel account of how an analogy with a more familiar mathematical domain can contribute to the confirmation of a mathematical conjecture. By reference to case-studies, we propose a distinction between an _incremental_ and a _non-incremental_ form of confirmation by mathematical analogy. We offer an account of the former within the popular framework of Bayesian (...)
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  • Showing Mathematical Flies the Way Out of Foundational Bottles: The Later Wittgenstein as a Forerunner of Lakatos and the Philosophy of Mathematical Practice.José Antonio Pérez-Escobar - 2022 - Kriterion – Journal of Philosophy 36 (2):157-178.
    This work explores the later Wittgenstein’s philosophy of mathematics in relation to Lakatos’ philosophy of mathematics and the philosophy of mathematical practice. I argue that, while the philosophy of mathematical practice typically identifies Lakatos as its earliest of predecessors, the later Wittgenstein already developed key ideas for this community a few decades before. However, for a variety of reasons, most of this work on philosophy of mathematics has gone relatively unnoticed. Some of these ideas and their significance as precursors for (...)
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  • Frameworks, models, and case studies: a new methodology for studying conceptual change in science and philosophy.Matteo De Benedetto - 2022 - Dissertation, Ludwig Maximilians Universität, München
    This thesis focuses on models of conceptual change in science and philosophy. In particular, I developed a new bootstrapping methodology for studying conceptual change, centered around the formalization of several popular models of conceptual change and the collective assessment of their improved formal versions via nine evaluative dimensions. Among the models of conceptual change treated in the thesis are Carnap’s explication, Lakatos’ concept-stretching, Toulmin’s conceptual populations, Waismann’s open texture, Mark Wilson’s patches and facades, Sneed’s structuralism, and Paul Thagard’s conceptual revolutions. (...)
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  • Reasoning by Analogy in Mathematical Practice.Francesco Nappo & Nicolò Cangiotti - 2023 - Philosophia Mathematica 31 (2):176-215.
    In this paper, we offer a descriptive theory of analogical reasoning in mathematics, stating general conditions under which an analogy may provide genuine inductive support to a mathematical conjecture (over and above fulfilling the merely heuristic role of ‘suggesting’ a conjecture in the psychological sense). The proposed conditions generalize the criteria of Hesse in her influential work on analogical reasoning in the empirical sciences. By reference to several case studies, we argue that the account proposed in this paper does a (...)
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  • What are mathematical diagrams?Silvia De Toffoli - 2022 - Synthese 200 (2):1-29.
    Although traditionally neglected, mathematical diagrams have recently begun to attract attention from philosophers of mathematics. By now, the literature includes several case studies investigating the role of diagrams both in discovery and justification. Certain preliminary questions have, however, been mostly bypassed. What are diagrams exactly? Are there different types of diagrams? In the scholarly literature, the term “mathematical diagram” is used in diverse ways. I propose a working definition that carves out the phenomena that are of most importance for a (...)
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  • Logic, Reasoning, and Rationality.Erik Weber, Joke Meheus & Dietlinde Wouters (eds.) - 2014 - Dordrecht, Netherland: Springer.
    This book contains a selection of the papers presented at the Logic, Reasoning and Rationality 2010 conference in Ghent. The conference aimed at stimulating the use of formal frameworks to explicate concrete cases of human reasoning, and conversely, to challenge scholars in formal studies by presenting them with interesting new cases of actual reasoning. According to the members of the Wiener Kreis, there was a strong connection between logic, reasoning, and rationality and that human reasoning is rational in so far (...)
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  • Groundwork for a Fallibilist Account of Mathematics.Silvia De Toffoli - 2021 - Philosophical Quarterly 7 (4):823-844.
    According to the received view, genuine mathematical justification derives from proofs. In this article, I challenge this view. First, I sketch a notion of proof that cannot be reduced to deduction from the axioms but rather is tailored to human agents. Secondly, I identify a tension between the received view and mathematical practice. In some cases, cognitively diligent, well-functioning mathematicians go wrong. In these cases, it is plausible to think that proof sets the bar for justification too high. I then (...)
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  • Mathematical Monsters.Andrew Aberdein - 2019 - In Diego Compagna & Stefanie Steinhart (eds.), Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society. Vernon Press. pp. 391-412.
    Monsters lurk within mathematical as well as literary haunts. I propose to trace some pathways between these two monstrous habitats. I start from Jeffrey Jerome Cohen’s influential account of monster culture and explore how well mathematical monsters fit each of his seven theses. The mathematical monsters I discuss are drawn primarily from three distinct but overlapping domains. Firstly, late nineteenth-century mathematicians made numerous unsettling discoveries that threatened their understanding of their own discipline and challenged their intuitions. The great French mathematician (...)
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  • On Suprasubjective Existence in Mathematics.Stanisław Krajewski - 2018 - Studia Semiotyczne 32 (2):75-86.
    The professional mathematician is a Platonist with regard to the existence of mathematical entities, but, if pressed to tell what kind of existence they have, he hides behind a formalist approach. In order to take both attitudes into account in a possibly serious way, the concept of suprasubjective existence is proposed. It involves intersubjective existence, plus a stress on objectivity devoid of actual objects. The idea is illustrated, following William Byers, by the phenomenon of the rainbow: it is not an (...)
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  • Computational Complexity Theory and the Philosophy of Mathematics†.Walter Dean - 2019 - Philosophia Mathematica 27 (3):381-439.
    Computational complexity theory is a subfield of computer science originating in computability theory and the study of algorithms for solving practical mathematical problems. Amongst its aims is classifying problems by their degree of difficulty — i.e., how hard they are to solve computationally. This paper highlights the significance of complexity theory relative to questions traditionally asked by philosophers of mathematics while also attempting to isolate some new ones — e.g., about the notion of feasibility in mathematics, the $\mathbf{P} \neq \mathbf{NP}$ (...)
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  • Philosophy of Mathematical Practice — Motivations, Themes and Prospects†.Jessica Carter - 2019 - Philosophia Mathematica 27 (1):1-32.
    A number of examples of studies from the field ‘The Philosophy of Mathematical Practice’ (PMP) are given. To characterise this new field, three different strands are identified: an agent-based, a historical, and an epistemological PMP. These differ in how they understand ‘practice’ and which assumptions lie at the core of their investigations. In the last part a general framework, capturing some overall structure of the field, is proposed.
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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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  • Envisioning Transformations – The Practice of Topology.Silvia De Toffoli & Valeria Giardino - 2016 - In Brendan Larvor (ed.), Mathematical Cultures: The London Meetings 2012-2014. Springer International Publishing. pp. 25-50.
    The objective of this article is twofold. First, a methodological issue is addressed. It is pointed out that even if philosophers of mathematics have been recently more and more concerned with the practice of mathematics, there is still a need for a sharp definition of what the targets of a philosophy of mathematical practice should be. Three possible objects of inquiry are put forward: (1) the collective dimension of the practice of mathematics; (2) the cognitives capacities requested to the practitioners; (...)
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  • (1 other version)Assessing the “Empirical Philosophy of Mathematics”.Markus Pantsar - 2015 - Discipline Filosofiche:111-130.
    Abstract In the new millennium there have been important empirical developments in the philosophy of mathematics. One of these is the so-called “Empirical Philosophy of Mathematics”(EPM) of Buldt, Löwe, Müller and Müller-Hill, which aims to complement the methodology of the philosophy of mathematics with empirical work. Among other things, this includes surveys of mathematicians, which EPM believes to give philosophically important results. In this paper I take a critical look at the sociological part of EPM as a case study of (...)
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  • (1 other version)From bayesianism to the epistemic view of mathematics: Richard Jeffrey. Subjective probability: The real thing. Cambridge: Cambridge university press, 2004. Isbn 0-521-82971-2 , 0-521-53668-5 . Pp. XVI + 124. [REVIEW]J. Williamson - 2006 - Philosophia Mathematica 14 (3):365-369.
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  • Expressing ‘the structure of’ in homotopy type theory.David Corfield - 2017 - Synthese 197 (2):681-700.
    As a new foundational language for mathematics with its very different idea as to the status of logic, we should expect homotopy type theory to shed new light on some of the problems of philosophy which have been treated by logic. In this article, definite description, and in particular its employment within mathematics, is formulated within the type theory. Homotopy type theory has been proposed as an inherently structuralist foundational language for mathematics. Using the new formulation of definite descriptions, opportunities (...)
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  • Depth and Explanation in Mathematics.Marc Lange - 2015 - Philosophia Mathematica 23 (2):196-214.
    This paper argues that in at least some cases, one proof of a given theorem is deeper than another by virtue of supplying a deeper explanation of the theorem — that is, a deeper account of why the theorem holds. There are cases of scientific depth that also involve a common abstract structure explaining a similarity between two otherwise unrelated phenomena, making their similarity no coincidence and purchasing depth by answering why questions that separate, dissimilar explanations of the two phenomena (...)
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  • Pluralism and “Bad” Mathematical Theories: Challenging our Prejudices.Michèle Friend - 2012 - In Francesco Berto, Edwin Mares, Koji Tanaka & Francesco Paoli (eds.), Paraconsistency: Logic and Applications. Dordrecht, Netherland: Springer. pp. 277--307.
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  • The Argument of Mathematics.Andrew Aberdein & Ian J. Dove (eds.) - 2013 - Dordrecht, Netherland: Springer.
    Written by experts in the field, this volume presents a comprehensive investigation into the relationship between argumentation theory and the philosophy of mathematical practice. Argumentation theory studies reasoning and argument, and especially those aspects not addressed, or not addressed well, by formal deduction. The philosophy of mathematical practice diverges from mainstream philosophy of mathematics in the emphasis it places on what the majority of working mathematicians actually do, rather than on mathematical foundations. -/- The book begins by first challenging the (...)
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  • Experimental mathematics, computers and the a priori.Mark McEvoy - 2013 - Synthese 190 (3):397-412.
    In recent decades, experimental mathematics has emerged as a new branch of mathematics. This new branch is defined less by its subject matter, and more by its use of computer assisted reasoning. Experimental mathematics uses a variety of computer assisted approaches to verify or prove mathematical hypotheses. For example, there is “number crunching” such as searching for very large Mersenne primes, and showing that the Goldbach conjecture holds for all even numbers less than 2 × 1018. There are “verifications” of (...)
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  • Inference to the best explanation as supporting the expansion of mathematicians’ ontological commitments.Marc Lange - 2022 - Synthese 200 (2):1-26.
    This paper argues that in mathematical practice, conjectures are sometimes confirmed by “Inference to the Best Explanation” as applied to some mathematical evidence. IBE operates in mathematics in the same way as IBE in science. When applied to empirical evidence, IBE sometimes helps to justify the expansion of scientists’ ontological commitments. Analogously, when applied to mathematical evidence, IBE sometimes helps to justify mathematicians' in expanding the range of their ontological commitments. IBE supplements other forms of non-deductive reasoning in mathematics, avoiding (...)
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  • Three Roles of Empirical Information in Philosophy: Intuitions on Mathematics do Not Come for Free.Deniz Sarikaya, José Antonio Pérez-Escobar & Deborah Kant - 2021 - Kriterion – Journal of Philosophy 35 (3):247-278.
    This work gives a new argument for ‘Empirical Philosophy of Mathematical Practice’. It analyses different modalities on how empirical information can influence philosophical endeavours. We evoke the classical dichotomy between “armchair” philosophy and empirical/experimental philosophy, and claim that the latter should in turn be subdivided in three distinct styles: Apostate speculator, Informed analyst, and Freeway explorer. This is a shift of focus from the source of the information towards its use by philosophers. We present several examples from philosophy of mind/science (...)
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  • Logic of imagination. Echoes of Cartesian epistemology in contemporary philosophy of mathematics and beyond.David Rabouin - 2018 - Synthese 195 (11):4751-4783.
    Descartes’ Rules for the direction of the mind presents us with a theory of knowledge in which imagination, considered as an “aid” for the intellect, plays a key role. This function of schematization, which strongly resembles key features of Proclus’ philosophy of mathematics, is in full accordance with Descartes’ mathematical practice in later works such as La Géométrie from 1637. Although due to its reliance on a form of geometric intuition, it may sound obsolete, I would like to show that (...)
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  • Non-deductive logic in mathematics.James Franklin - 1987 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 38 (1):1-18.
    Mathematicians often speak of conjectures as being confirmed by evidence that falls short of proof. For their own conjectures, evidence justifies further work in looking for a proof. Those conjectures of mathematics that have long resisted proof, such as Fermat's Last Theorem and the Riemann Hypothesis, have had to be considered in terms of the evidence for and against them. It is argued here that it is not adequate to describe the relation of evidence to hypothesis as `subjective', `heuristic' or (...)
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  • Russell's Unknown Logicism: A Study in the History and Philosophy of Mathematics.Sébastien Gandon - 2012 - Houndmills, England and New York: Palgrave-Macmillan.
    In this excellent book Sebastien Gandon focuses mainly on Russell's two major texts, Principa Mathematica and Principle of Mathematics, meticulously unpicking the details of these texts and bringing a new interpretation of both the mathematical and the philosophical content. Winner of The Bertrand Russell Society Book Award 2013.
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  • Is Mathematics Unreasonably Effective?Daniel Waxman - 2021 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 99 (1):83-99.
    Many mathematicians, physicists, and philosophers have suggested that the fact that mathematics—an a priori discipline informed substantially by aesthetic considerations—can be applied to natural science is mysterious. This paper sharpens and responds to a challenge to this effect. I argue that the aesthetic considerations used to evaluate and motivate mathematics are much more closely connected with the physical world than one might presume, and (with reference to case-studies within Galois theory and probabilistic number theory) show that they are correlated with (...)
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  • Intuition in Mathematics: a Perceptive Experience.Alexandra Van-Quynh - 2017 - Journal of Phenomenological Psychology 48 (1):1-38.
    This study applied a method of assisted introspection to investigate the phenomenology of mathematical intuition arousal. The aim was to propose an essential structure for the intuitive experience of mathematics. To achieve an intersubjective comparison of different experiences, several contemporary mathematicians were interviewed in accordance with the elicitation interview method in order to collect pinpoint experiential descriptions. Data collection and analysis was then performed using steps similar to those outlined in the descriptive phenomenological method that led to a generic structure (...)
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  • What Are Symmetries?David John Baker - 2022 - Ergo: An Open Access Journal of Philosophy 9.
    I advance a stipulational account of symmetry-to-reality inference, according to which symmetries are part of the content of theories. For a theory to have a certain symmetry is for the theory to stipulate that models related by the symmetry represent the same possibility. I show that the stipulational account compares positively with alternatives, including Dasgupta’s epistemic account of symmetry, Møller-Nielsen’s motivational account, and so-called formal and ontic accounts. In particular, the stipulational account avoids the problems Belot and Dasgupta have raised (...)
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  • What is a Higher Level Set?Dimitris Tsementzis - 2016 - Philosophia Mathematica:nkw032.
    Structuralist foundations of mathematics aim for an ‘invariant’ conception of mathematics. But what should be their basic objects? Two leading answers emerge: higher groupoids or higher categories. I argue in favor of the former over the latter. First, I explain why to choose between them we need to ask the question of what is the correct ‘categorified’ version of a set. Second, I argue in favor of groupoids over categories as ‘categorified’ sets by introducing a pre-formal understanding of groupoids as (...)
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  • The dialectical tier of mathematical proof.Andrew Aberdein - 2011 - In Frank Zenker (ed.), Argumentation: Cognition & Community. Proceedings of the 9th International Conference of the Ontario Society for the Study of Argumentation (OSSA), May 18--21, 2011. OSSA.
    Ralph Johnson argues that mathematical proofs lack a dialectical tier, and thereby do not qualify as arguments. This paper argues that, despite this disavowal, Johnson’s account provides a compelling model of mathematical proof. The illative core of mathematical arguments is held to strict standards of rigour. However, compliance with these standards is itself a matter of argument, and susceptible to challenge. Hence much actual mathematical practice takes place in the dialectical tier.
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  • The philosophy of mathematical practice.Bart Van Kerkhove - 2010 - International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 24 (1):118 – 122.
    This title offers philosophical analyses of important characteristics of contemporary mathematics and of many aspects of mathematical activity which escape purely formal logical treatment.
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  • Justifying definitions in mathematics—going beyond Lakatos.Charlotte Werndl - 2009 - Philosophia Mathematica 17 (3):313-340.
    This paper addresses the actual practice of justifying definitions in mathematics. First, I introduce the main account of this issue, namely Lakatos's proof-generated definitions. Based on a case study of definitions of randomness in ergodic theory, I identify three other common ways of justifying definitions: natural-world justification, condition justification, and redundancy justification. Also, I clarify the interrelationships between the different kinds of justification. Finally, I point out how Lakatos's ideas are limited: they fail to show how various kinds of justification (...)
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  • On the persuasiveness of visual arguments in mathematics.Matthew Inglis & Juan Pablo Mejía-Ramos - 2009 - Foundations of Science 14 (1-2):97-110.
    Two experiments are reported which investigate the factors that influence how persuaded mathematicians are by visual arguments. We demonstrate that if a visual argument is accompanied by a passage of text which describes the image, both research-active mathematicians and successful undergraduate mathematics students perceive it to be significantly more persuasive than if no text is given. We suggest that mathematicians’ epistemological concerns about supporting a claim using visual images are less prominent when the image is described in words. Finally we (...)
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  • Indeterminacy, coincidence, and “Sourcing Newness” in mathematical research.James V. Martin - 2022 - Synthese 200 (1):1-23.
    Far from being unwelcome or impossible in a mathematical setting, indeterminacy in various forms can be seen as playing an important role in driving mathematical research forward by providing “sources of newness” in the sense of Hutter and Farías :434–449, 2017). I argue here that mathematical coincidences, phenomena recently under discussion in the philosophy of mathematics, are usefully seen as inducers of indeterminacy and as put to work in guiding mathematical research. I suggest that to call a pair of mathematical (...)
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