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  1. The because of Because Without Cause†.Daniele Molinini - 2018 - Philosophia Mathematica 26 (2):275-286.
    Marc Lange. Because Without Cause: Non-Causal Explanations in Science and Mathematics. Oxford Studies in the Philosophy of Science. Oxford University Press.
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  • Understanding the Revisability Thesis.Célia Teixeira - 2018 - Grazer Philosophische Studien 95 (2):180-195.
    W. V. Quine famously claimed that no statement is immune to revision. This thesis has had a profound impact on twentieth century philosophy, and it still occupies centre stage in many contemporary debates. However, despite its importance it is not clear how it should be interpreted. I show that the thesis is in fact ambiguous between three substantially different theses. I illustrate the importance of clarifying it by assessing its use in the debate against the existence of a priori knowledge. (...)
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  • Some Recent Existential Appeals to Mathematical Experience.Michael J. Shaffer - 2006 - Principia: An International Journal of Epistemology 10 (2):143–170.
    Some recent work by philosophers of mathematics has been aimed at showing that our knowledge of the existence of at least some mathematical objects and/or sets can be epistemically grounded by appealing to perceptual experience. The sensory capacity that they refer to in doing so is the ability to perceive numbers, mathematical properties and/or sets. The chief defense of this view as it applies to the perception of sets is found in Penelope Maddy’s Realism in Mathematics, but a number of (...)
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  • Honest Toil or Sheer Magic?Alan Weir - 2007 - Dialectica 61 (1):89-115.
    In this article I discuss the 'procedural postulationist' view of mathematics advanced by Kit Fine in a recent paper. I argue that he has not shown that this view provides an avenue to knowledge of mathematical truths, at least if such truths are objective truths. In particular, more needs to be said about the criteria which constrain which types of entities can be postulated. I also argue that his reliance on second-order quantification means that his background logic is not free (...)
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  • Journal of Philosophical Investigations.M. Asgahri - 2015 - Journal of Philosophical Investigations 9 (17):1-227.
    open journal of Philosophical Investigations (PI) is an international journal dedicated to the latest advancements in philosophy. The goal of this journal is to provide a platform for academicians all over the world to promote, share, and discuss various new issues and developments in different areas of philosophy. -/- All manuscripts to be prepared in English or Persian and are subject to a rigorous and fair peer-review process. Generally, accepted papers will appear online. The journal publishes papers including the following (...)
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  • (1 other version)Does the Counterfactual Theory of Explanation Apply to Non-Causal Explanations in Metaphysics?Alexander Reutlinger - 2016 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science:1-18.
    In the recent philosophy of explanation, a growing attention to and discussion of non-causal explanations has emerged, as there seem to be compelling examples of non-causal explanations in the sciences, in pure mathematics, and in metaphysics. I defend the claim that the counterfactual theory of explanation (CTE) captures the explanatory character of both non-causal scientific and metaphysical explanations. According to the CTE, scientific and metaphysical explanations are explanatory by virtue of revealing counterfactual dependencies between the explanandum and the explanans. I (...)
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  • Lakatos’ Quasi-empiricism in the Philosophy of Mathematics.Michael J. Shaffer - 2015 - Polish Journal of Philosophy 9 (2):71-80.
    Imre Lakatos' views on the philosophy of mathematics are important and they have often been underappreciated. The most obvious lacuna in this respect is the lack of detailed discussion and analysis of his 1976a paper and its implications for the methodology of mathematics, particularly its implications with respect to argumentation and the matter of how truths are established in mathematics. The most important themes that run through his work on the philosophy of mathematics and which culminate in the 1976a paper (...)
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  • Mathematical Concepts and Investigative Practice.Dirk Schlimm - 2012 - In Uljana Feest & Friedrich Steinle (eds.), Scientific Concepts and Investigative Practice. de Gruyter. pp. 127-148.
    In this paper I investigate two notions of concepts that have played a dominant role in 20th century philosophy of mathematics. According to the first, concepts are definite and fixed; in contrast, according to the second notion concepts are open and subject to modifications. The motivations behind these two incompatible notions and how they can be used to account for conceptual change are presented and discussed. On the basis of historical developments in mathematics I argue that both notions of concepts (...)
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  • A verisimilitudinarian analysis of the Linda paradox.Gustavo Cevolani, Vincenzo Crupi & Roberto Festa - 2012 - VII Conference of the Spanish Society for Logic, Methodology and Philosphy of Science.
    The Linda paradox is a key topic in current debates on the rationality of human reasoning and its limitations. We present a novel analysis of this paradox, based on the notion of verisimilitude as studied in the philosophy of science. The comparison with an alternative analysis based on probabilistic confirmation suggests how to overcome some problems of our account by introducing an adequately defined notion of verisimilitudinarian confirmation.
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  • Pierre Duhem’s Good Sense as a guide to Theory Choice.Milena Ivanova - 2010 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 41 (1):58-64.
    This paper examines Duhem’s concept of good sense as an attempt to support a non rule-governed account of rationality in theory choice. Faced with the underdetermination of theory by evidence thesis and the continuity thesis, Duhem tried to account for the ability of scientists to choose theories that continuously grow to a natural classification. I will examine the concept of good sense and the problems that stem from it. I will also present a recent attempt by David Stump to link (...)
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  • Concept grounding and knowledge of set theory.Jeffrey W. Roland - 2010 - Philosophia 38 (1):179-193.
    C. S. Jenkins has recently proposed an account of arithmetical knowledge designed to be realist, empiricist, and apriorist: realist in that what’s the case in arithmetic doesn’t rely on us being any particular way; empiricist in that arithmetic knowledge crucially depends on the senses; and apriorist in that it accommodates the time-honored judgment that there is something special about arithmetical knowledge, something we have historically labeled with ‘a priori’. I’m here concerned with the prospects for extending Jenkins’s account beyond arithmetic—in (...)
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  • Kitcher, mathematics, and naturalism.Jeffrey W. Roland - 2008 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 86 (3):481 – 497.
    This paper argues that Philip Kitcher's epistemology of mathematics, codified in his Naturalistic Constructivism, is not naturalistic on Kitcher's own conception of naturalism. Kitcher's conception of naturalism is committed to (i) explaining the correctness of belief-regulating norms and (ii) a realist notion of truth. Naturalistic Constructivism is unable to simultaneously meet both of these commitments.
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  • Error in action and belief.Natika Newton - 1989 - Philosophia 19 (4):363-401.
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  • Revolutionary Fictionalism: A Call to Arms.Mary Leng - 2005 - Philosophia Mathematica 13 (3):277-293.
    This paper responds to John Burgess's ‘Mathematics and _Bleak House_’. While Burgess's rejection of hermeneutic fictionalism is accepted, it is argued that his two main attacks on revolutionary fictionalism fail to meet their target. Firstly, ‘philosophical modesty’ should not prevent philosophers from questioning the truth of claims made within successful practices, provided that the utility of those practices as they stand can be explained. Secondly, Carnapian scepticism concerning the meaningfulness of _metaphysical_ existence claims has no force against a _naturalized_ version (...)
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  • Kitcher’s Circumlocutionary Structuralism.Michael Hand - 1991 - Canadian Journal of Philosophy 21 (1):81-89.
    Philip Kitcher has proposed an account of mathematical truth which he hopes avoids platonistic commitment to abstract mathematical objects. His idea is that the truth-conditions of mathematical statements consist in certain general structural features of physical reality. He codifies these structural features by reference to various operations which are performable on objects: the world is structured in such a way that these operations are possible. Which operations are performable cannot be known a priori; rather, we hypothesize, conjecture, idealize, and eventually (...)
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  • Explanation beyond causation? New directions in the philosophy of scientific explanation.Alexander Reutlinger - 2017 - Philosophy Compass 12 (2):e12395.
    In this paper, I aim to provide access to the current debate on non-causal explanations in philosophy of science. I will first present examples of non-causal explanations in the sciences. Then, I will outline three alternative approaches to non-causal explanations – that is, causal reductionism, pluralism, and monism – and, corresponding to these three approaches, different strategies for distinguishing between causal and non-causal explanation. Finally, I will raise questions for future research on non-causal explanations.
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  • On Naturalizing the Epistemology of Mathematics.Jeffrey W. Roland - 2009 - Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 90 (1):63-97.
    In this paper, I consider an argument for the claim that any satisfactory epistemology of mathematics will violate core tenets of naturalism, i.e. that mathematics cannot be naturalized. I find little reason for optimism that the argument can be effectively answered.
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  • Mathematical engineering and mathematical change.Jean-Pierre Marquis - 1999 - International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 13 (3):245 – 259.
    In this paper, I introduce and examine the notion of “mathematical engineering” and its impact on mathematical change. Mathematical engineering is an important part of contemporary mathematics and it roughly consists of the “construction” and development of various machines, probes and instruments used in numerous mathematical fields. As an example of such constructions, I briefly present the basic steps and properties of homology theory. I then try to show that this aspect of contemporary mathematics has important consequences on our conception (...)
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  • Abelson's Statistics as Principled Argument.Peter McBurney - 2001 - Informal Logic 21 (3).
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  • Proofs and pictures.James Robert Brown - 1997 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 48 (2):161-180.
    Everyone appreciates a clever mathematical picture, but the prevailing attitude is one of scepticism: diagrams, illustrations, and pictures prove nothing; they are psychologically important and heuristically useful, but only a traditional verbal/symbolic proof provides genuine evidence for a purported theorem. Like some other recent writers (Barwise and Etchemendy [1991]; Shin [1994]; and Giaquinto [1994]) I take a different view and argue, from historical considerations and some striking examples, for a positive evidential role for pictures in mathematics.
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  • The Weak Objectivity of Mathematics and Its Reasonable Effectiveness in Science.Daniele Molinini - 2020 - Axiomathes 30 (2):149-163.
    Philosophical analysis of mathematical knowledge are commonly conducted within the realist/antirealist dichotomy. Nevertheless, philosophers working within this dichotomy pay little attention to the way in which mathematics evolves and structures itself. Focusing on mathematical practice, I propose a weak notion of objectivity of mathematical knowledge that preserves the intersubjective character of mathematical knowledge but does not bear on a view of mathematics as a body of mind-independent necessary truths. Furthermore, I show how that the successful application of mathematics in science (...)
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  • The Applicability of Mathematics and the Indispensability Arguments.Michele Ginammi - 2016 - Lato Sensu, Revue de la Société de Philosophie des Sciences 3 (1):59-68.
    In this paper I will take into examination the relevance of the main indispensability arguments for the comprehension of the applicability of mathematics. I will conclude not only that none of these indispensability arguments are of any help for understanding mathematical applicability, but also that these arguments rather require a preliminary analysis of the problems raised by the applicability of mathematics in order to avoid some tricky difficulties in their formulations. As a consequence, we cannot any longer consider the applicability (...)
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  • Mitä Gödelin epätäydellisyysteoreemoista voidaan päätellä filosofiassa?Markus Pantsar - 2011 - Ajatus 68.
    Tutkin tässä artikkelissa Kurt Gödelin epätäydellisyysteoreemojen tulkintoja filosofiassa. Aihepiiri kattaa valtavan määrän eri tulkintoja tekoälystä fysiikkaan ja runouteen asti. Osoitan, että kriittisesti tarkasteltuna kaikki radikaalit epätäydellisyysteoreemojen sovellukset ovat virheellisiä.
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  • Mathematics as a science of patterns. [REVIEW]Mark Steiner - 2000 - Philosophical Review 109 (1):115-118.
    For the past hundred years, mathematics, for its own reasons, has been shifting away from the study of “mathematical objects” and towards the study of “structures”. One would have expected philosophers to jump onto the bandwagon, as in many other cases, to proclaim that this shift is no accident, since mathematics is “essentially” about structures, not objects. In fact, structuralism has not been a very popular philosophy of mathematics, probably because of the hostility of Frege and other influential logicists, and (...)
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  • XI- Naturalism and Placement, or, What Should a Good Quinean Say about Mathematical and Moral Truth?Mary Leng - 2016 - Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 116 (3):237-260.
    What should a Quinean naturalist say about moral and mathematical truth? If Quine’s naturalism is understood as the view that we should look to natural science as the ultimate ‘arbiter of truth’, this leads rather quickly to what Huw Price has called ‘placement problems’ of placing moral and mathematical truth in an empirical scientific world-view. Against this understanding of the demands of naturalism, I argue that a proper understanding of the reasons Quine gives for privileging ‘natural science’ as authoritative when (...)
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  • Computers as a Source of A Posteriori Knowledge in Mathematics.Mikkel Willum Johansen & Morten Misfeldt - 2016 - International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 30 (2):111-127.
    Electronic computers form an integral part of modern mathematical practice. Several high-profile results have been proven with techniques where computer calculations form an essential part of the proof. In the traditional philosophical literature, such proofs have been taken to constitute a posteriori knowledge. However, this traditional stance has recently been challenged by Mark McEvoy, who claims that computer calculations can constitute a priori mathematical proofs, even in cases where the calculations made by the computer are too numerous to be surveyed (...)
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  • The sensible foundation for mathematics: A defense of Kant's view.Mark Risjord - 1990 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 21 (1):123-143.
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  • Maddy and Mathematics: Naturalism or Not.Jeffrey W. Roland - 2007 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 58 (3):423-450.
    Penelope Maddy advances a purportedly naturalistic account of mathematical methodology which might be taken to answer the question 'What justifies axioms of set theory?' I argue that her account fails both to adequately answer this question and to be naturalistic. Further, the way in which it fails to answer the question deprives it of an analog to one of the chief attractions of naturalism. Naturalism is attractive to naturalists and nonnaturalists alike because it explains the reliability of scientific practice. Maddy's (...)
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  • The epistemological status of computer-assisted proofs.Mark McEvoy - 2008 - Philosophia Mathematica 16 (3):374-387.
    Several high-profile mathematical problems have been solved in recent decades by computer-assisted proofs. Some philosophers have argued that such proofs are a posteriori on the grounds that some such proofs are unsurveyable; that our warrant for accepting these proofs involves empirical claims about the reliability of computers; that there might be errors in the computer or program executing the proof; and that appeal to computer introduces into a proof an experimental element. I argue that none of these arguments withstands scrutiny, (...)
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  • (1 other version)Filosofía de las matemáticas, teoría de cardinales grandes y sus bases cognitivas.Wilfredo Quezada - 2017 - Revista de Filosofía 73:281-297.
    En este artículo se examinan algunas implicaciones del naturalismo matemático de P. Maddy como una concepción filosófica que permite superar las dificultades del ficcionalismo y el realismo fisicalista en matemáticas. Aparte de esto, la mayor virtud de tal concepción parece ser que resuelve el problema que plantea para la aplicabilidad de la matemática el no asumir la tesis de indispensabilidad de Quine sin comprometerse con su holismo confirmacional. A continuación, sobre la base de dificultades intrínsecas al programa de Maddy, exploramos (...)
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  • (1 other version)Mathematical naturalism: An anthropological perspective.Stephen Pollard & Robert Bates Graber - 1989 - Southern Journal of Philosophy 27 (3):427-441.
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  • ‘Fregean’ logic and ‘Russellian’ logic.Jaroslav Peregrin - 2000 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 78 (4):557 – 574.
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  • Der Charakter der Mathematik zwischen Philosophie und Wissenschaft.Michael Otte - 1989 - Philosophica 43:79-126.
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  • Idealization in Cassirer's philosophy of mathematics.Thomas Mormann - 2008 - Philosophia Mathematica 16 (2):151 - 181.
    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 (...)
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  • Marc Lange. The because of Because Without Cause: Non-Causal Explanations in Science and Mathematics.Daniele Molinini - forthcoming - Philosophia Mathematica:nky004.
    © The Authors [2018]. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: [email protected] article is published and distributed under the terms of the Oxford University Press, Standard Journals Publication Model...In his Moby Dick, Herman Melville writes that “to produce a mighty book you must choose a mighty theme”. Marc Lange’s Because Without Cause is definitely an impressive book that deals with a mighty theme, that of non-causal explanations in the empirical sciences and in mathematics. Blending a (...)
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  • 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 (...)
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  • Kuhn, Lakatos, and the image of mathematics.Eduard Glas - 1995 - Philosophia Mathematica 3 (3):225-247.
    In this paper I explore possibilities of bringing post-positivist philosophies of empirical science to bear on the dynamics of mathematical development. This is done by way of a convergent accommodation of a mathematical version of Lakatos's methodology of research programmes, and a version of Kuhn's account of scientific change that is made applicable to mathematics by cleansing it of all references to the psychology of perception. The resulting view is argued in the light of two case histories of radical conceptual (...)
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  • Transcendental niche construction.Werner Callebaut - 2007 - Acta Biotheoretica 55 (1):73-90.
    I discuss various reactions to my article “Again, what the philosophy of science is not” [Callebaut (Acta Biotheor 53:92–122 (2005a))], most of which concern the naturalism issue, the place of the philosophy of biology within philosophy of science and philosophy at large, and the proper tasks of the philosophy of biology.
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  • Philosophers as Intuitive Lawyers.Gustavo Javier Arroyo - 2018 - Contemporary Pragmatism 15 (1):46-65.
    Philosophers have traditionally described themselves as “intuitive scientists”: people seeking the most justified theories about distinctive aspects of the world. Relying on insights from philosophers as Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Williams James, I argue that philosophers should be described instead as “intuitive lawyers” who defend a point of view largely by appealing to non-cognitive reasons.
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  • Seventh Quadrennial Fellows Conference of the Center for Philosophy of Science.-Preprint Volume- - unknown
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  • To Continue With Continuity.Martin Cooke - 2005 - Metaphysica 6 (2):91-109.
    The metaphysical concept of continuity is important, not least because physical continua are not known to be impossible. While it is standard to model them with a mathematical continuum based upon set-theoretical intuitions, this essay considers, as a contribution to the debate about the adequacy of those intuitions, the neglected intuition that dividing the length of a line by the length of an individual point should yield the line’s cardinality. The algebraic properties of that cardinal number are derived pre-theoretically from (...)
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  • Gödel on Truth and Proof.Dan Nesher - unknown
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