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 (...) better job in vindicating the use of analogical inference in mathematics than the prominent alternative defended by Bartha. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to show that topology has a bearing on<br><br>combinatorial theories of possibility. The approach developed in this article is “mapping account” considering combinatorial worlds as mappings from individuals to properties. Topological structures are used to define constraints on the mappings thereby characterizing the “really possible” combinations. The mapping approach avoids the well-known incompatibility problems. Moreover, it is compatible with atomistic as well as with non-atomistic ontologies.It helps to elucidate the positions of logical atomism and monism (...) with theaid of topological separation axioms. (shrink)

The notion of idealization has received considerable attention in contemporary philosophy of science but less in philosophy of mathematics. An exception was the ‘critical idealism’ of the neo-Kantian philosopher Ernst Cassirer. According to Cassirer the methodology of idealization plays a central role for mathematics and empirical science. In this paper it is argued that Cassirer's contributions in this area still deserve to be taken into account in the current debates in philosophy of mathematics. For extremely useful criticisms on earlier versions (...) I am grateful to B.P. Larvor and another anonymous journal referee. CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

Professor Grosholz packs a lot into her interesting and suggestive paper “Formal Unities and Real Individuals” (Grosholz 1990b). In the limited space available I can comment briefly on its several parts, or direct more substantive comments at a single issue. I will opt for the latter; specifically, I want to address her critique of mathematical structuralism, as found especially in the writings of Michael Resnik.I begin with a brief, hence necessarily caricatured, summary of Resnik’s influential view. According to structuralism, the (...) subject matter of a mathematical theory is a given pattern, or structure, and the objects of the theory are intrinsically unstructured points, or positions, within that pattern. Mathematical objects thus have no identity, and no intrinsic features, outside of the patterns in which they occur. Hence, they cannot be given in isolation but only in their role within an antecedently given pattern, and are distinguishable from one another only in virtue of the relations they bear to one another in the pattern (see, e.g., Resnik (1981)). (shrink)

The view that toposes originated as generalized set theory is a figment of set theoretically educated common sense. This false history obstructs understanding of category theory and especially of categorical foundations for mathematics. Problems in geometry, topology, and related algebra led to categories and toposes. Elementary toposes arose when Lawvere's interest in the foundations of physics and Tierney's in the foundations of topology led both to study Grothendieck's foundations for algebraic geometry. I end with remarks on a categorical view of (...) the history of set theory, including a false history plausible from that point of view that would make it helpful to introduce toposes as a generalization from set theory. (shrink)

The relationship between the objects of mathematics and physics has been a recurrent source of philosophical debate. Rationalist philosophers can minimize the distance between mathematical and physical domains by appealing to transcendental categories, but then are left with the problem of where to locate those categories ontologically. Empiricists can locate their objects in the material realm, but then have difficulty explaining certain peculiar “transcendental” features of mathematics like the timelessness of its objects and the unfalsifiability of (at least some of) (...) its truths. During the past twenty years, the relationship between mathematics and physics has come to seem particularly problematic, in part because of a strong interest in “naturalized epistemology” among American philosophers. The tendency to construe epistemological relations in causal and materialist terms seems to enforce a sharp distinction between mathematical and physical entities, and makes the former seem at best uncomfortably inaccessible and at worst irrelevant. (shrink)

Both early analytic philosophy and the branch of mathematics now known as topology were gestated and born in the early part of the 20th century. It is not well recognized that there was early interaction between the communities practicing and developing these fields. We trace the history of how topological ideas entered into analytic philosophy through two migrations, an earlier one conceiving of topology geometrically and a later one conceiving of topology algebraically. This allows us to reassess the influence and (...) significance of topological methods for philosophy, including the possible fruitfulness of a third conception of topology as a structure determining similarity. (shrink)

We state the defining characteristic of mathematics as a type of symmetry where one can change the connotation of a mathematical statement in a certain way when the statement's truth value remains the same. This view of mathematics as satisfying such symmetry places mathematics as comparable with modern views of physics and science where, over the past century, symmetry also plays a defining role. We explore the very nature of mathematics and its relationship with natural science from this perspective. This (...) point of view helps clarify some standard problems in the philosophy of mathematics. (shrink)