Recent work in the philosophy of language attempts to elucidate the elusive notion of aboutness. A natural question concerning such a project has to do with its motivation: why is the notion of aboutness important? Stephen Yablo offers an interesting answer: taking into consideration not only the conditions under which a sentence is true, but also what a sentence is about opens the door to a new style of criticism of certain philosophical analyses. We might criticize the analysis of a (...) given notion not because it fails to assign the right truth conditions to a class of sentences, but because it characterizes those sentences as being about something they are not about. In this paper, I apply Yablo’s suggestion to a case study. I consider meta-fictionalism, the view that the content of a mathematical claim S is ‘according to standard mathematics, S’. I argue, following Woodward, that, on certain assumptions, meta-fictionalism assigns the right truth-conditions to typical assertoric utterances of mathematical statements. However, I also argue that meta-fictionalism assigns the wrong aboutness conditions to typical assertoric utterances of mathematical statements. (shrink)

In this work I study the main tenets of the logicist philosophy of mathematics. I deal, basically, with two problems: (1) To what extent can one dispense with intuition in mathematics? (2) What is the appropriate logic for the purposes of logicism? By means of my considerations I try to determine the pros and cons of logicism. My standpoint favors the logicist line of thought. -/- .

What is the source of logical and mathematical truth? This book revitalizes conventionalism as an answer to this question. Conventionalism takes logical and mathematical truth to have their source in linguistic conventions. This was an extremely popular view in the early 20th century, but it was never worked out in detail and is now almost universally rejected in mainstream philosophical circles. Shadows of Syntax is the first book-length treatment and defense of a combined conventionalist theory of logic and mathematics. It (...) argues that our conventions, in the form of syntactic rules of language use, are perfectly suited to explain the truth, necessity, and a priority of logical and mathematical claims, as well as our logical and mathematical knowledge. (shrink)

This dissertation is centered around a set of apparently conflicting intuitions that we may have about mathematics. On the one hand, we are inclined to believe that the theorems of mathematics are true. Since many of these theorems are existence assertions, it seems that if we accept them as true, we also commit ourselves to the existence of mathematical objects. On the other hand, mathematical objects are usually thought of as abstract objects that are non-spatiotemporal and causally inert. This makes (...) it difficult to understand how we can have knowledge of them and how they can have any relevance for our mathematical theories. I begin by characterizing a realist position in the philosophy of mathematics and discussing two of the most influential arguments for that kind of view. Next, after highlighting some of the difficulties that realism faces, I look at a few alternative approaches that attempt to account for our mathematical practice without making the assumption that there exist abstract mathematical entities. More specifically, I examine the fictionalist views developed by Hartry Field, Mark Balaguer, and Stephen Yablo, respectively. A common feature of these views is that they accept that mathematics interpreted at face value is committed to the existence of abstract objects. In order to avoid this commitment, they claim that mathematics, when taken at face value, is false. I argue that the fictionalist idea of mathematics as consisting of falsehoods is counter-intuitive and that we should aim for an account that can accommodate both the intuition that mathematics is true and the intuition that the causal inertness of abstract mathematical objects makes them irrelevant to mathematical practice and mathematical knowledge. The solution that I propose is based on Rudolf Carnap's distinction between an internal and an external perspective on existence. I argue that the most reasonable interpretation of the notions of mathematical truth and existence is that they are internal to mathematics and, hence, that mathematical truth cannot be used to draw the conclusion that mathematical objects exist in an external/ontological sense. (shrink)

An account of validity that makes what is invalid conditional on how many individuals there are is what I call a conditional account of validity. Here I defend conditional accounts against a criticism derived from Etchemendy’s well-known criticism of the model-theoretic analysis of validity. The criticism is essentially that knowledge of the size of the universe is non-logical and so by making knowledge of the extension of validity depend on knowledge of how many individuals there are, conditional accounts fail to (...) reflect that the former knowledge is basic, i.e., independent of knowledge derived from other sciences. Appealing to Russell’s pre-Principia logic, I defend conditional accounts against this criticism by sketching a rationale for thinking that there are infinitely many logical objects. (shrink)

In Grundgesetze, Vol. II, §91, Frege argues that ‘it is applicability alone which elevates arithmetic from a game to the rank of a science’. Many view this as an in nuce statement of the indispensability argument later championed by Quine. Garavaso has questioned this attribution. I argue that even though Frege's applicability argument is not a version of ia, it facilitates acceptance of suitable formulations of ia. The prospects for making the empiricist ia compatible with a rationalist Fregean framework appear (...) thus much less dim than expected. Nonetheless, those arguing for such compatibility eventually face an hardly surmountable dilemma. (shrink)

Mark Colyvan (2010) raises two problems for ‘easy road’ nominalism about mathematical objects. The first is that a theory’s mathematical commitments may run too deep to permit the extraction of nominalistic content. Taking the math out is, or could be, like taking the hobbits out of Lord of the Rings. I agree with the ‘could be’, but not (or not yet) the ‘is’. A notion of logical subtraction is developed that supports the possibility, questioned by Colyvan, of bracketing a theory’s (...) mathematical aspects to obtain, as remainder, what it says ‘mathematics aside’. The other problem concerns explanation. Several grades of mathematical involvement in physical explanation are distinguished, by analogy with Quine’s three grades of modal involvement. The first two grades plausibly obtain, but they do not require mathematical objects. The third grade is likelier to require mathematical objects. But it is not clear from Colyvan’s example that the third grade really obtains. (shrink)

I here argue for a particular formulation of truth-deflationism, namely, the propositionally quantified formula, (Q) “For all p, <p> is true iff p”. The main argument consists of an enumeration of the other (five) possible formulations and criticisms thereof. Notably, Horwich’s Minimal Theory is found objectionable in that it cannot be accepted by finite beings. Other formulations err in not providing non-questionbegging, sufficiently direct derivations of the T-schema instances. I end by defending (Q) against various objections. In particular, I argue (...) that certain circularity charges rest on mistaken assumptions about logic that lead to Carroll’s regress. I show how the propositional quantifier can be seen as on a par with first-order quantifiers and so equally acceptable to use. While the proposed parallelism between these quantifiers is controversial in general, deflationists have special reasons to affirm it. I further argue that the main three types of approach the truth-paradoxes are open to an adherent of (Q), and that the derivation of general facts about truth can be explained on its basis. (shrink)

Field's claim that we have a notion of consistency which is neither model-theoretic nor proof-theoretic but primitive, is examined and criticized. His argument is compared to similar examinations by Kreisel and Etchemendy, and Etchemendy's distinction between interpretational and representational semantics is employed to reveal the flaw in Field's argument.

The present paper will argue that, for too long, many nominalists have concentrated their researches on the question of whether one could make sense of applications of mathematics (especially in science) without presupposing the existence of mathematical objects. This was, no doubt, due to the enormous influence of Quine's "Indispensability Argument", which challenged the nominalist to come up with an explanation of how science could be done without referring to, or quantifying over, mathematical objects. I shall admonish nominalists to enlarge (...) the target of their investigations to include the many uses mathematicians make of concepts such as structures and models to advance pure mathematics. I shall illustrate my reasons for admonishing nominalists to strike out in these new directions by using Hartry Field's nominalistic view of mathematics as a model of a philosophy of mathematics that was developed in just the sort of way I argue one should guard against. I shall support my reasons by providing grounds for rejecting both Field's fictionalism and also his deflationist account of mathematical knowledge—doctrines that were formed largely in response to the Indispensability Argument. I shall then give a refutation of Mark Balaguer's argument for his thesis that fictionalism is "the best version of anti-realistic anti-platonism". (shrink)

According to the indispensability argument, the fact that we quantify over numbers, sets and functions in our best scientific theories gives us reason for believing that such objects exist. I examine a strategy to dispense with such quantification by simply replacing any given platonistic theory by the set of sentences in the nominalist vocabulary it logically entails. I argue that, as a strategy, this response fails: for there is no guarantee that the nominalist world that go beyond the set of (...) sentences in the nominalist language such theories entail. However, I argue that what such theories show is that mathematics can enable us to express possibilities about the concrete world that may not be expressible in nominalistically acceptable language. While I grant that this may make quantification over abstracta indispensable, I deny that such indispensability is a reason for accepting them into our ontology. I urge that the nominalist should be allowed to quantify over abstracta whilst denying their existence and I explain how this apparently contradictory practice (a practice I call 'weaseling') is in fact coherent, unproblematic and rational. Finally, I examine the view that platonistic theories are simpler or more attractive than their nominalistic reformulations, and thus that abstract ought to be accepted into our ontology for the same sorts of reasons as other theoretical objects. I argue that, at least in the case of numbers, functions and sets, such arguments misunderstand the kind of simplicity and attractiveness we seek. (shrink)

Much recent discussion in the philosophy of mathematics has concerned the indispensability argument—an argument which aims to establish the existence of abstract mathematical objects through appealing to the role that mathematics plays in empirical science. The indispensability argument is standardly attributed to W. V. Quine and Hilary Putnam. In this paper, I show that this attribution is mistaken. Quine's argument for the existence of abstract mathematical objects differs from the argument which many philosophers of mathematics ascribe to him. Contrary to (...) appearances, Putnam did not argue for the existence of abstract mathematical objects at all. I close by suggesting that attention to Quine and Putnam's writings reveals some neglected arguments for platonism which may be superior to the indispensability argument. (shrink)

We face reality presented with the data of conscious experience and nothing else. The project of early modern philosophy was to build a complete theory of the world from this starting point, with no cheating. Crucial to this starting point is the data of conscious sensory experience – sense data. Attempts to avoid this project often argue that the very idea of sense data is confused. But the sense-data way of talking, the sense-data language, can be freed from every blemish (...) using ideas from contemporary metaontology. We can adopt a sense-data framework that vindicates the traditional claims of sense-data theories and leads to plausible theories of perception and color. We can, we should, and in a sense, we must. Yet when we do, we face the traditional problem of external world skepticism, head-on. The real challenge of skepticism is forced upon us; it cannot honestly be avoided using externalist tricks, burden of proof shifting, or other razzle dazzle. But the challenge can be met: we are rational to posit the external world as the best explanation of the many synchronic and diachronic patterns over our sense-data. This paper argues for all of these points and ends with a plea for analytic empiricism – a traditional sense-data version of empiricism that uses all of the tools of analytic philosophy while avoiding the more questionable doctrines of the Vienna Circle (phenomenalism, verificationism). Analytic empiricism is our last best hope for completing the great philosophical project of early modern philosophy. (shrink)

I argue that there is a tension between two of the most distinctive theses of Sven Rosenkranz’s Justification as Ignorance: the central thesis concerning justification, according to which an agent has propositional justification to believe p iff they are in no position to know that they are in no position to know p and the desire to avoid logical omniscience by imposing only “realistic” idealizations on epistemic agents.

Ordinary English contains different forms of quantification over objects. In addition to the usual singular quantification, as in 'There is an apple on the table', there is plural quantification, as in 'There are some apples on the table'. Ever since Frege, formal logic has favored the two singular quantifiers ∀x and ∃x over their plural counterparts ∀xx and ∃xx (to be read as for any things xx and there are some things xx). But in recent decades it has been argued (...) that we have good reason to admit among our primitive logical notions also the plural quantifiers ∀xx and ∃xx. More controversially, it has been argued that the resulting formal system with plural as well as singular quantification qualifies as ‘pure logic’; in particular, that it is universally applicable, ontologically innocent, and perfectly well understood. In addition to being interesting in its own right, this thesis will, if correct, make plural quantification available as an innocent but extremely powerful tool in metaphysics, philosophy of mathematics, and philosophical logic. For instance, George Boolos has used plural quantification to interpret monadic second-order logic and has argued on this basis that monadic second-order logic qualifies as “pure logic.” Plural quantification has also been used in attempts to defend logicist ideas, to account for set theory, and to eliminate ontological commitments to mathematical objects and complex objects. (shrink)

This paper develops some respects in which the philosophy of mathematics can fruitfully be informed by mathematical practice, through examining Frege's Grundlagen in its historical setting. The first sections of the paper are devoted to elaborating some aspects of nineteenth century mathematics which informed Frege's early work. (These events are of considerable philosophical significance even apart from the connection with Frege.) In the middle sections, some minor themes of Grundlagen are developed: the relationship Frege envisions between arithmetic and geometry and (...) the way in which the study of reasoning is to illuminate this. In the final section, it is argued that the sorts of issues Frege attempted to address concerning the character of mathematical reasoning are still in need of a satisfying answer. (shrink)

Let me start with a well-known story. Kant held that logic and conceptual analysis alone cannot account for our knowledge of arithmetic: “however we might turn and twist our concepts, we could never, by the mere analysis of them, and without the aid of intuition, discover what is the sum [7+5]” (KrV, B16). Frege took himself to have shown that Kant was wrong about this. According to Frege’s logicist thesis, every arithmetical concept can be defined in purely logical terms, and (...) every theorem of arithmetic can be proved using only the basic laws of logic. Hence, Kant was wrong to think that our grasp of arithmetical concepts and our knowledge of arithmetical truth depend on an extralogical source—the pure intuition of time (Frege 1884, §89, §109). Arithmetic, properly understood, is just a part of logic. (shrink)

Hartry Field’s epistemological challenge to the mathematical platonist is often cast as an improvement on Paul Benacerraf’s original epistemological challenge. I disagree. While Field’s challenge is more difficult for the platonist to address than Benacerraf’s, I argue that this is because Field’s version is a special case of what I call the ‘sociological challenge’. The sociological challenge applies equally to platonists and fictionalists, and addressing it requires a serious examination of mathematical practice. I argue that the non-sociological part of Field’s (...) challenge amounts to a minor reformulation of Benacerraf’s original challenge. So, I contend, Field’s challenge is not an improvement on Benacerraf’s. What is new to Field’s challenge is as much a problem for the fictionalist as it is for the platonist. (shrink)

I consider the well-known criticism of Quine's characterization of first-order logical truth that it expands the class of logical truths beyond what is sanctioned by the model-theoretic account. Briefly, I argue that at best the criticism is shallow and can be answered with slight alterations in Quine's account. At worse the criticism is defective because, in part, it is based on a misrepresentation of Quine. This serves not only to clarify Quine's position, but also to crystallize what is and what (...) is not at issue in choosing the model-theoretic account of first-order logical truth over one in terms of substitutions. I conclude by highlighting the need for justifying the belief that the definition of first-order logical truth in terms of models is superior to its definition in terms of substitutions. (shrink)

It has been argued that the attempt to meet indispensability arguments for realism in mathematics, by appeal to counterfactual statements, presupposes a view of mathematical modality according to which even though mathematical entities do not exist, they might have existed. But I have sought to defend this controversial view of mathematical modality from various objections derived from the fact that the existence or nonexistence of mathematical objects makes no difference to the arrangement of concrete objects. This defense of the controversial (...) view of mathematical modality obviously falls far short of a full endorsement of the counterfactual approach, but I hope my remarks may serve to help keep such an approach a live option. (shrink)

This paper argues that it is scientific realists who should be most concerned about the issue of Platonism and anti-Platonism in mathematics. If one is merely interested in accounting for the practice of pure mathematics, it is unlikely that a story about the ontology of mathematical theories will be essential to such an account. The question of mathematical ontology comes to the fore, however, once one considers our scientific theories. Given that those theories include amongst their laws assertions that imply (...) the existence of mathematical objects, scientific realism, when construed as a claim about the truth or approximate truth of our scientific theories, implies mathematical Platonism. However, a standard argument for scientific realism, the 'no miracles' argument, falls short of establishing mathematical Platonism. As a result, this argument cannot establish scientific realism as it is usually defined, but only some weaker position. Scientific 'realists' should therefore either redefine their position as a claim about the existence of unobservable physical objects, or alternatively look for an argument for their position that does establish mathematical Platonism. (shrink)

ABSTRACT‘expressionist’ accounts of applied mathematics seek to avoid the apparent Platonistic commitments of our scientific theories by holding that we ought only to believe their mathematics-free nominalistic content. The notion of ‘nominalistic content’ is, however, notoriously slippery. Yablo's account of non-catastrophic presupposition failure offers a way of pinning down this notion. However, I argue, its reliance on possible worlds machinery begs key questions against Platonism. I propose instead that abstract expressionists follow Geoffrey Hellman's lead in taking the assertoric content of (...) empirical science to be irreducibly modal, using the ‘non-interference’ of mathematical objects as justification for detaching nominalistic consequences. (shrink)

In this article, I provide a general account of deflationism. After doing so, I turn to truth-defla- tionism, where, after first describing some of the species, I highlight some challenges for those who wish to adopt it.

One cannot escape the feeling that these mathematical formulae have an independent existence and an intelligence of their own, that they are wiser than we are, wiser even than their discoverers.

Philosophy of the Art of Science. Historical Remarks on the Significance of Rules in Scientific Language. This paper undertakes first steps toward a ‘Philosophy of the Art of Science’ from a History of Science and Philosophy of Language perspective. Traditionally it is understood that Philosophy of Science assesses science as to the validity of its methods and to the question of how it is that we hold its claims to be true. However, the range of presuppositions here is considerable: Roughly, (...) it spans from Gottlob Frege's ‘The True’ (das Wahre) as the aim of scientific inquiry on the one end, to Paul Feyerabend's pluralistic understanding of science in a democratic society on the other. Despite this profound difference, however, we can nonetheless detect some similarity between them. Both hold science to be a normative endeavor: Frege thinks we ought to strive for true thoughts as somewhat independent ontological entities; Feyerabend thinks we ought to strive for a pragmatic humanism that takes the historicity of our knowledge into account. But while Frege ventured to show that natural language can benefit from insights drawn from the normative logic of formalized languages, Feyerabend discounted the idea of formalized language altogether, but with no less normative verve in regard to our scientific concept formation. Hence the combining question is whether scientific concept formation is indeed a rule‐governed behavior, or, put more generally, whether semantic content as such is normative. Guided by this question, the present paper draws a line from Frege through Russell, Wittgenstein, Carnap, and Quine, to those authors who follow or refute Saul Kripke's Wittgensteinian notion of semantic normativity in the most recent discussion of today. However, the paper does not proceed chronologically, but rather thematically along the major lines of argument. Hence after a brief survey of Feyerabend's philosophy of scientific concept formation (I), we explore Frege and his legacy on semantic normativity (II), and investigate the route that eventually led to present day semantic rule‐skepticism (III). We conclude with Carnap's ‘Principle of Tolerance’ combined with Feyerabend's notion of Science as an Art, parallels of which we can even find in Kant's third Critique (IV). (shrink)

In this paper, I explore Rosen’s ‘transcendental’ objection to constructive empiricism—the argument that in order to be a constructive empiricist, one must be ontologically committed to just the sort of abstract, mathematical objects constructive empiricism seems committed to denying. In particular, I assess Bueno’s ‘partial structures’ response to Rosen, and argue that such a strategy cannot succeed, on the grounds that it cannot provide an adequate metalogic for our scientific discourse. I conclude by arguing that this result provides some interesting (...) consequences in general for anti-realist programmes in the philosophy of science.Keywords: Constructive empiricism; Mathematical fictionalism; Partial structures; Modality. (shrink)

In Science without numbers Hartry Field attempted to formulate a nominalist version of Newtonian physics?one free of ontic commitment to numbers, functions or sets?sufficiently strong to have the standard platonist version as a conservative extension. However, when uses for abstract entities kept popping up like hydra heads, Field enriched his logic to avoid them. This paper reviews some of Field's attempts to deflate his ontology by inflating his logic.

I am hugely grateful for these provocative and illuminating comments. My thanks to all N commentators (N ≈ 13). I will have something to say about each contribution, but the overall organization wi...

This paper offers a novel method for nominalizing metalogic without transcending first-order reasoning about physical tokens (inscriptions, etc.) of proofs. A kind of double-negation scheme is presented which helps construct, for any platonistic statement in metalogic, a nominalistic statement which has the same assertability condition as the former. For instance, to the platonistic statement "there is a (platonistic) proof of A in deductive system D" corresponds the nominalistic statement "there is no (metalogical) proof token in (possibly informal) set theory for (...) the claim that there is no proof of A in D." And it is argued that the nominalist can use all the platonistic results by transforming them into such nominalistic correlates. (shrink)

In this thesis, I aim to motivate a particular philosophy of mathematics characterised by the following three claims. First, mathematical sentences are generally speaking false because mathematical objects do not exist. Second, people typically use mathematical sentences to communicate content that does not imply the existence of mathematical objects. Finally, in using mathematical language in this way, speakers are not doing anything out of the ordinary: they are performing straightforward assertions. In Part I, I argue that the role played by (...) mathematics in our scientific explanations is a purely expressive one, merely allowing us to say more about the physical world than we would otherwise be able to. Mathematical objects do not need to exist for mathematics to play this role. This proposal puts a normative constraint on our use of mathematical language: we ought to use mathematically presented theories to express belief only in the consequences they have for non-mathematical things. In Part II, I will argue that what the normative proposal recommends is in fact what people generally do in both pure and applied mathematical contexts. I motivate this claim by showing that it is predicted by our best general means of analysing natural language. I provide a semantic theory of applied arithmetical sentences that reveals they do not purport to refer to numbers, as well as a pragmatic theory for pure mathematical language use which reveals that pure mathematical utterances do not typically communicate content that implies the existence of mathematical objects. In conclusion, I show that the emerging hermeneutic fictionalist position is preferable to any alternative interpretation of mathematical discourse as aimed at describing a domain of independently existing abstract mathematical objects. (shrink)