Switch to: References

Citations of:

Mathematics Without Numbers: Towards a Modal-Structural Interpretation

Oxford, England: Oxford University Press (1989)

Add citations

You must login to add citations.
  1. Nominalistic content, grounding, and covering generalizations: Reply to ‘Grounding and the indispensability argument’.Matteo Plebani - 2016 - Synthese 193 (2):549-558.
    ‘Grounding and the indispensability argument’ presents a number of ways in which nominalists can use the notion of grounding to rebut the indispensability argument for the existence of mathematical objects. I will begin by considering the strategy that puts grounding to the service of easy-road nominalists. I will give some support to this strategy by addressing a worry some may have about it. I will then consider a problem for the fast-lane strategy and a problem for easy-road nominalists willing to (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  • If-Thenism, Arithmetic and Remainders.Matteo Plebani - 2017 - Australasian Philosophical Review 1 (2):196-201.
    ABSTRACTThe target article presents a new version of if-thenism: call it IF-thenism. In this commentary I discuss whether IF-thenism can solve a problem that besets classic if-thenism. The answer will be that it can, on certain assumptions. I will briefly examine the tenability of these assumptions.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Platonism and aristotelianism in mathematics.Richard Pettigrew - 2008 - Philosophia Mathematica 16 (3):310-332.
    Philosophers of mathematics agree that the only interpretation of arithmetic that takes that discourse at 'face value' is one on which the expressions 'N', '0', '1', '+', and 'x' are treated as proper names. I argue that the interpretation on which these expressions are treated as akin to free variables has an equal claim to be the default interpretation of arithmetic. I show that no purely syntactic test can distinguish proper names from free variables, and I observe that any semantic (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   24 citations  
  • Troubles with indispensability: Applying pure mathematics in physical theory.Anthony F. Peressini - 1997 - Philosophia Mathematica 5 (3):210-227.
    Much of the current thought concerning mathematical ontology in volves in some way the Quine/Putnam indispensability argument. The indispensability approach needs to be more thoroughly specified, however, before substantive progress can be made in assessing it. To this end I examine in some detail the ways in which pure mathematics is applied to physical theory; such considerations give rise to three specific issues with which the indispensability approach must come to grips.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   12 citations  
  • Know-How and Gradability.Carlotta Pavese - 2017 - Philosophical Review 126 (3):345-383.
    Orthodoxy has it that knowledge is absolute—that is, it cannot come in degrees. On the other hand, there seems to be strong evidence for the gradability of know-how. Ascriptions of know-how are gradable, as when we say that one knows in part how to do something, or that one knows how to do something better than somebody else. When coupled with absolutism, the gradability of ascriptions of know-how can be used to mount a powerful argument against intellectualism about know-how—the view (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   64 citations  
  • Philosophy of the Matrix.A. C. Paseau - 2017 - Philosophia Mathematica 25 (2):246-267.
    A mathematical matrix is usually defined as a two-dimensional array of scalars. And yet, as I explain, matrices are not in fact two-dimensional arrays. So are we to conclude that matrices do not exist? I show how to resolve the puzzle, for both contemporary and older mathematics. The solution generalises to the interpretation of all mathematical discourse. The paper as a whole attempts to reinforce mathematical structuralism by reflecting on how best to interpret mathematics.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Naturalism in mathematics and the authority of philosophy.Alexander Paseau - 2005 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 56 (2):377-396.
    Naturalism in the philosophy of mathematics is the view that philosophy cannot legitimately gainsay mathematics. I distinguish between reinterpretation and reconstruction naturalism: the former states that philosophy cannot legitimately sanction a reinterpretation of mathematics (i.e. an interpretation different from the standard one); the latter that philosophy cannot legitimately change standard mathematics (as opposed to its interpretation). I begin by showing that neither form of naturalism is self-refuting. I then focus on reinterpretation naturalism, which comes in two forms, and examine the (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   14 citations  
  • Objectivity in Mathematics, Without Mathematical Objects†.Markus Pantsar - 2021 - Philosophia Mathematica 29 (3):318-352.
    I identify two reasons for believing in the objectivity of mathematical knowledge: apparent objectivity and applications in science. Focusing on arithmetic, I analyze platonism and cognitive nativism in terms of explaining these two reasons. After establishing that both theories run into difficulties, I present an alternative epistemological account that combines the theoretical frameworks of enculturation and cumulative cultural evolution. I show that this account can explain why arithmetical knowledge appears to be objective and has scientific applications. Finally, I will argue (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   9 citations  
  • Frege, Dedekind, and the Modern Epistemology of Arithmetic.Markus Pantsar - 2016 - Acta Analytica 31 (3):297-318.
    In early analytic philosophy, one of the most central questions concerned the status of arithmetical objects. Frege argued against the popular conception that we arrive at natural numbers with a psychological process of abstraction. Instead, he wanted to show that arithmetical truths can be derived from the truths of logic, thus eliminating all psychological components. Meanwhile, Dedekind and Peano developed axiomatic systems of arithmetic. The differences between the logicist and axiomatic approaches turned out to be philosophical as well as mathematical. (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • An empirically feasible approach to the epistemology of arithmetic.Markus Pantsar - 2014 - Synthese 191 (17):4201-4229.
    Recent years have seen an explosion of empirical data concerning arithmetical cognition. In this paper that data is taken to be philosophically important and an outline for an empirically feasible epistemological theory of arithmetic is presented. The epistemological theory is based on the empirically well-supported hypothesis that our arithmetical ability is built on a protoarithmetical ability to categorize observations in terms of quantities that we have already as infants and share with many nonhuman animals. It is argued here that arithmetical (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   28 citations  
  • Fictionalism and the Problem of Universals in the Philosophy of Mathematics.Strahinja Đorđević - 2018 - Filozofija I Društvo 29 (3):415-428.
    Many long-standing problems pertaining to contemporary philosophy of mathematics can be traced back to different approaches in determining the nature of mathematical entities which have been dominated by the debate between realists and nominalists. Through this discussion conceptualism is represented as a middle solution. However, it seems that until the 20th century there was no third position that would not necessitate any reliance on one of the two points of view. Fictionalism, on the other hand, observes mathematical entities in a (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Ontological realism and sentential form.Eileen S. Nutting - 2018 - Synthese 195 (11):5021-5036.
    The standard argument for the existence of distinctively mathematical objects like numbers has two main premises: some mathematical claims are true, and the truth of those claims requires the existence of distinctively mathematical objects. Most nominalists deny. Those who deny typically reject Quine’s criterion of ontological commitment. I target a different assumption in a standard type of semantic argument for. Benacerraf’s semantic argument, for example, relies on the claim that two sentences, one about numbers and the other about cities, have (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  • A Critique of Resnik’s Mathematical Realism.Timothy John Nulty - 2005 - Erkenntnis 62 (3):379 - 393.
    This paper attempts to motivate skepticism about the reality of mathematical objects. The aim of the paper is not to provide a general critique of mathematical realism, but to demonstrate the insufficiency of the arguments advanced by Michael Resnik. I argue that Resnik’s use of the concept of immanent truth is inconsistent with the treatment of mathematical objects as ontologically and epistemically continuous with the objects posited by the natural sciences. In addition, Resnik’s structuralist program, and his denial of relational (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • A Critique of Resnik’s Mathematical Realism.Timothy John Nulty - 2005 - Erkenntnis 62 (3):379-393.
    This paper attempts to motivate skepticism about the reality of mathematical objects. The aim of the paper is not to provide a general critique of mathematical realism, but to demonstrate the insufficiency of the arguments advanced by Michael Resnik. I argue that Resnik's use of the concept of immanent truth is inconsistent with the treatment of mathematical objects as ontologically and epistemically continuous with the objects posited by the natural sciences. In addition, Resnik's structuralist program, and his denial of relational (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Do Ante Rem Mathematical Structures Instantiate Themselves?Scott Normand - 2019 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 97 (1):167-177.
    ABSTRACTAnte rem structuralists claim that mathematical objects are places in ante rem structural universals. They also hold that the places in these structural universals instantiate themselves. This paper is an investigation of this self-instantiation thesis. I begin by pointing out that this thesis is of central importance: unless the places of a mathematical structure, such as the places of the natural number structure, themselves instantiate the structure, they cannot have any arithmetical properties. But if places do not have arithmetical properties, (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Foundations for Mathematical Structuralism.Uri Nodelman & Edward N. Zalta - 2014 - Mind 123 (489):39-78.
    We investigate the form of mathematical structuralism that acknowledges the existence of structures and their distinctive structural elements. This form of structuralism has been subject to criticisms recently, and our view is that the problems raised are resolved by proper, mathematics-free theoretical foundations. Starting with an axiomatic theory of abstract objects, we identify a mathematical structure as an abstract object encoding the truths of a mathematical theory. From such foundations, we derive consequences that address the main questions and issues that (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   20 citations  
  • The ontology of words: a structural approach.Ryan M. Nefdt - 2019 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 62 (8):877-911.
    Words form a fundamental basis for our understanding of linguistic practice. However, the precise ontology of words has eluded many philosophers and linguists. A persistent difficulty for most accounts of words is the type-token distinction [Bromberger, S. 1989. “Types and Tokens in Linguistics.” In Reflections on Chomsky, edited by A. George, 58–90. Basil Blackwell; Kaplan, D. 1990. “Words.” Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume LXIV: 93–119]. In this paper, I present a novel account of words which differs from the atomistic and platonistic (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   13 citations  
  • Formal Semantics and Applied Mathematics: An Inferential Account.Ryan M. Nefdt - 2020 - Journal of Logic, Language and Information 29 (2):221-253.
    In this paper, I utilise the growing literature on scientific modelling to investigate the nature of formal semantics from the perspective of the philosophy of science. Specifically, I incorporate the inferential framework proposed by Bueno and Colyvan : 345–374, 2011) in the philosophy of applied mathematics to offer an account of how formal semantics explains and models its data. This view produces a picture of formal semantic models as involving an embedded process of inference and representation applying indirectly to linguistic (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  • On the possibility of science without numbers.Chris Mortensen - 1998 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 76 (2):182 – 197.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   5 citations  
  • Naturalism, Truth and Beauty in Mathematics.Matthew E. Moore - 2007 - Philosophia Mathematica 15 (2):141-165.
    Can a scientific naturalist be a mathematical realist? I review some arguments, derived largely from the writings of Penelope Maddy, for a negative answer. The rejoinder from the realist side is that the irrealist cannot explain, as well as the realist can, why a naturalist should grant the mathematician the degree of methodological autonomy that the irrealist's own arguments require. Thus a naturalist, as such, has at least as much reason to embrace mathematical realism as to embrace irrealism.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Indispensability and explanation: an overview and introduction.Daniele Molinini, Fabrice Pataut & Andrea Sereni - 2016 - Synthese 193 (2):317-332.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   7 citations  
  • Against Logical Realism.Michael D. Resnik - 1999 - History and Philosophy of Logic 20 (3-4):181-194.
    This paper argues against Logical Realism, in particular against the view that there are facts of matters of logic that obtain independently of us, our linguistic conventions and inferential practices. The paper challenges logical realists to provide a non-intuition based epistemology, one which would be compatible with the empiricist and naturalist convictions motivating much recent anti-realist philosophy of mathematics.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   21 citations  
  • How to apply mathematics.Ulrich Meyer - 2004 - Erkenntnis 61 (1):17-28.
    This paper presents a novel account of applied mathematics. It shows how we can distinguish the physical content from the mathematical form of a scientific theory even in cases where the mathematics applied is indispensable and cannot be eliminated by paraphrase.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  • Extending Hartry field's instrumental account of applied mathematics to statistical mechanics.Glen Meyer - 2009 - Philosophia Mathematica 17 (3):273-312.
    A serious flaw in Hartry Field’s instrumental account of applied mathematics, namely that Field must overestimate the extent to which many of the structures of our mathematical theories are reflected in the physical world, underlies much of the criticism of this account. After reviewing some of this criticism, I illustrate through an examination of the prospects for extending Field’s account to classical equilibrium statistical mechanics how this flaw will prevent any significant extension of this account beyond field theories. I note (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  • Sets and supersets.Toby Meadows - 2016 - Synthese 193 (6):1875-1907.
    It is a commonplace of set theory to say that there is no set of all well-orderings nor a set of all sets. We are implored to accept this due to the threat of paradox and the ensuing descent into unintelligibility. In the absence of promising alternatives, we tend to take up a conservative stance and tow the line: there is no universe. In this paper, I am going to challenge this claim by taking seriously the idea that we can (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  • The last mathematician from Hilbert's göttingen: Saunders Mac Lane as philosopher of mathematics.Colin McLarty - 2007 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 58 (1):77-112.
    While Saunders Mac Lane studied for his D.Phil in Göttingen, he heard David Hilbert's weekly lectures on philosophy, talked philosophy with Hermann Weyl, and studied it with Moritz Geiger. Their philosophies and Emmy Noether's algebra all influenced his conception of category theory, which has become the working structure theory of mathematics. His practice has constantly affirmed that a proper large-scale organization for mathematics is the most efficient path to valuable specific results—while he sees that the question of which results are (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   9 citations  
  • A consistency proof for some restrictions of Tait's reflection principles.Rupert McCallum - 2013 - Mathematical Logic Quarterly 59 (1-2):112-118.
    In 5, Tait identifies a set of reflection principles called equation image-reflection principles which Peter Koellner has shown to be consistent relative to the existence of κ, the first ω-Erdős cardinal 1. Tait also defines a set of reflection principles called equation image-reflection principles; however, Koellner has shown that these are inconsistent when m > 2, but identifies restricted versions of them which he proves consistent relative to κ 2. In this paper, we introduce a new large-cardinal property, the α-reflective (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  • Putnam and contemporary fictionalism.Concha Martínez Vidal - 2018 - Theoria : An International Journal for Theory, History and Fundations of Science 33 (2):165-181.
    Putnam rejects having argued in the terms of the argument known in the literature as “the Quine-Putnam indispensability argument”. He considers that mathematics contribution to physics does not have to be interpreted in platonist terms but in his favorite modal variety. The purpose of this paper is to consider Putnam’s acknowledged argument and philosophical position against contemporary so called in the literature ‘fictionalist’ views about applied mathematics. The conclusion will be that the account of the applicability of mathematics that stems (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • 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 (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
  • Philosophy of mathematics: Prospects for the 1990s.Penelope Maddy - 1991 - Synthese 88 (2):155 - 164.
    For some time now, academic philosophers of mathematics have concentrated on intramural debates, the most conspicuous of which has centered on Benacerraf's epistemological challenge. By the late 1980s, something of a consensus had developed on how best to respond to this challenge. But answering Benacerraf leaves untouched the more advanced epistemological question of how the axioms are justified, a question that bears on actual practice in the foundations of set theory. I suggest that the time is ripe for philosophers of (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   6 citations  
  • What is Analytic Metaphysics For?James Maclaurin & Heather Dyke - 2012 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 90 (2):291-306.
    We divide analytic metaphysics into naturalistic and non-naturalistic metaphysics. The latter we define as any philosophical theory that makes some ontological (as opposed to conceptual) claim, where that ontological claim has no observable consequences. We discuss further features of non-naturalistic metaphysics, including its methodology of appealing to intuition, and we explain the way in which we take it to be discontinuous with science. We outline and criticize Ladyman and Ross's 2007 epistemic argument against non-naturalistic metaphysics. We then present our own (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   25 citations  
  • Conclusive reasons that we perceive sets.David MacCallum - 2000 - International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 14 (1):25 – 42.
    Penelope Maddy has defended a modified version of mathematical platonism that involves the perception of some sets. Frederick Suppe has developed a conclusive reasons account of empirical knowledge that, when applied to the sets of interest to Maddy, yields that we have knowledge of these sets. Thus, Benacerraf's challenge to the platonist to account for mathematical knowledge has been met, at least in part. Moreover, it is argued that the modalities involved in Suppe's conclusive reasons account of knowledge can be (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   5 citations  
  • Taking mathematical fictions seriously.Michael Liston - 1993 - Synthese 95 (3):433 - 458.
    I argue on the basis of an example, Fourier theory applied to the problem of vibration, that Field's program for nominalizing science is unlikely to succeed generally, since no nominalistic variant will provide us with the kind of physical insight into the phenomena that the standard theory supplies. Consideration of the same example also shows, I argue, that some of the motivation for mathematical fictionalism, particularly the alleged problem of cognitive access, is more apparent than real.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   9 citations  
  • Inference to the Best explanation.Peter Lipton - 2004 - In Martin Curd & Stathis Psillos (eds.), The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Science. Routledge. pp. 193.
    Science depends on judgments of the bearing of evidence on theory. Scientists must judge whether an observation or the result of an experiment supports, disconfirms, or is simply irrelevant to a given hypothesis. Similarly, scientists may judge that, given all the available evidence, a hypothesis ought to be accepted as correct or nearly so, rejected as false, or neither. Occasionally, these evidential judgments can be made on deductive grounds. If an experimental result strictly contradicts a hypothesis, then the truth of (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   298 citations  
  • Two types of abstraction for structuralism.Øystein Linnebo & Richard Pettigrew - 2014 - Philosophical Quarterly 64 (255):267-283.
    If numbers were identified with any of their standard set-theoretic realizations, then they would have various non-arithmetical properties that mathematicians are reluctant to ascribe to them. Dedekind and later structuralists conclude that we should refrain from ascribing to numbers such ‘foreign’ properties. We first rehearse why it is hard to provide an acceptable formulation of this conclusion. Then we investigate some forms of abstraction meant to purge mathematical objects of all ‘foreign’ properties. One form is inspired by Frege; the other (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   26 citations  
  • Rumfitt on the logic of set theory.Øystein Linnebo - 2019 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 62 (7):826-841.
    ABSTRACTAccording to a famous argument by Dummett, the concept of set is indefinitely extensible, and the logic appropriate for reasoning about the instances of any such concept is intuitionistic, not classical. But Dummett's argument is widely regarded as obscure. This note explains how the final chapter of Rumfitt's important new book advances our understanding of Dummett's argument, but it also points out some problems and unanswered questions. Finally, Rumfitt's reconstruction of Dummett's argument is contrasted with my own preferred alternative.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Reductionism as resource-conscious reasoning.Godehard Link - 2000 - Erkenntnis 53 (1-2):173-193.
    Reductivist programs in logicand philosophy, especially inthe philosophy of mathematics,are reviewed. The paper argues fora ``methodological realism'' towardsnumbers and sets, but still givesreductionism an important place,albeit in methodology/epistemologyrather than in ontology proper.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Plurals and modals.Øystein Linnebo - 2016 - Canadian Journal of Philosophy 46 (4-5):654-676.
    Consider one of several things. Is the one thing necessarily one of the several? This key question in the modal logic of plurals is clarified. Some defenses of an affirmative answer are developed and compared. Various remarks are made about the broader philosophical significance of the question.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   16 citations  
  • Critical Studies/Book Reviews.O. Linnebo - 2003 - Philosophia Mathematica 11 (1):92-104.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  • Critical studies/book reviews.Øystein Linnebo - 2003 - Philosophia Mathematica 11 (1):92-104.
    This is a critical notice of Stewart Shapiro's 1997 book, Philosophy of Mathematics: Structure and Ontology.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  • Quine, Putnam, and the ‘Quine–Putnam’ Indispensability Argument.David Liggins - 2008 - Erkenntnis 68 (1):113 - 127.
    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 (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   40 citations  
  • Reasoning Under a Presupposition and the Export Problem: The Case of Applied Mathematics.Mary Leng - 2017 - Australasian Philosophical Review 1 (2):133-142.
    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 (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   8 citations  
  • Models, structures, and the explanatory role of mathematics in empirical science.Mary Leng - 2021 - Synthese 199 (3-4):10415-10440.
    Are there genuine mathematical explanations of physical phenomena, and if so, how can mathematical theories, which are typically thought to concern abstract mathematical objects, explain contingent empirical matters? The answer, I argue, is in seeing an important range of mathematical explanations as structural explanations, where structural explanations explain a phenomenon by showing it to have been an inevitable consequence of the structural features instantiated in the physical system under consideration. Such explanations are best cast as deductive arguments which, by virtue (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  • On Non-Eliminative Structuralism. Unlabeled Graphs as a Case Study, Part A†.Hannes Leitgeb - 2020 - Philosophia Mathematica 28 (3):317-346.
    This is Part A of an article that defends non-eliminative structuralism about mathematics by means of a concrete case study: a theory of unlabeled graphs. Part A summarizes the general attractions of non-eliminative structuralism. Afterwards, it motivates an understanding of unlabeled graphs as structures sui generis and develops a corresponding axiomatic theory of unlabeled graphs. As the theory demonstrates, graph theory can be developed consistently without eliminating unlabeled graphs in favour of sets; and the usual structuralist criterion of identity can (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   7 citations  
  • The structuralist approach to underdetermination.Chanwoo Lee - 2022 - Synthese 200 (2):1-25.
    This paper provides an exposition of the structuralist approach to underdetermination, which aims to resolve the underdetermination of theories by identifying their common theoretical structure. Applications of the structuralist approach can be found in many areas of philosophy. I present a schema of the structuralist approach, which conceptually unifies such applications in different subject matters. It is argued that two classic arguments in the literature, Paul Benacerraf’s argument on natural numbers and W. V. O. Quine’s argument for the indeterminacy of (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  • A metaphysical foundation for mathematical philosophy.Wójtowicz Krzysztof & Skowron Bartłomiej - 2022 - Synthese 200 (4):1-28.
    Although mathematical philosophy is flourishing today, it remains subject to criticism, especially from non-analytical philosophers. The main concern is that even if formal tools serve to clarify reasoning, they themselves contribute nothing new or relevant to philosophy. We defend mathematical philosophy against such concerns here by appealing to its metaphysical foundations. Our thesis is that mathematical philosophy can be founded on the phenomenological theory of ideas as developed by Roman Ingarden. From this platonist perspective, the “unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Pirmin Stekeler-Weithofer: Formen der Anschauung. [REVIEW]Vojtěch Kolman - 2011 - Journal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 42 (1):193-199.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  • Pirmin Stekeler-Weithofer: Formen der Anschauung: deGruyter, Berlin/new York, 2008, 400 pp., 74.00 $, ISBN 978-3-11-019435-7. [REVIEW]Vojtěch Kolman - 2011 - Journal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 42 (1):193-199.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  • Structuralism and the identity of indiscernibles.Jeffrey Ketland - 2006 - Analysis 66 (4):303-315.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   42 citations  
  • 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.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   13 citations