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  1. Open texture, rigor, and proof.Benjamin Zayton - 2022 - Synthese 200 (4):1-20.
    Open texture is a kind of semantic indeterminacy first systematically studied by Waismann. In this paper, extant definitions of open texture will be compared and contrasted, with a view towards the consequences of open-textured concepts in mathematics. It has been suggested that these would threaten the traditional virtues of proof, primarily the certainty bestowed by proof-possession, and this suggestion will be critically investigated using recent work on informal proof. It will be argued that informal proofs have virtues that mitigate the (...)
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  • Mathematical Internal Realism.Tim Button - 2022 - In Sanjit Chakraborty & James Ferguson Conant (eds.), Engaging Putnam. Berlin, Germany: De Gruyter. pp. 157-182.
    In “Models and Reality” (1980), Putnam sketched a version of his internal realism as it might arise in the philosophy of mathematics. Here, I will develop that sketch. By combining Putnam’s model-theoretic arguments with Dummett’s reflections on Gödelian incompleteness, we arrive at (what I call) the Skolem-Gödel Antinomy. In brief: our mathematical concepts are perfectly precise; however, these perfectly precise mathematical concepts are manifested and acquired via a formal theory, which is understood in terms of a computable system of proof, (...)
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  • Reflection Principles and Second-Order Choice Principles with Urelements.Bokai Yao - 2022 - Annals of Pure and Applied Logic 173 (4):103073.
    We study reflection principles in Kelley-Morse set theory with urelements (KMU). We first show that First-Order Reflection Principle is not provable in KMU with Global Choice. We then show that KMU + Limitation of Size + Second-Order Reflection Principle is mutually interpretable with KM + Second-Order Reflection Principle. Furthermore, these two theories are also shown to be bi-interpretable with parameters. Finally, assuming the existence of a κ+-supercompact cardinal κ in KMU, we construct a model of KMU + Second-Order Reflection Principle (...)
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  • Arithmetic is Determinate.Zachary Goodsell - 2021 - Journal of Philosophical Logic 51 (1):127-150.
    Orthodoxy holds that there is a determinate fact of the matter about every arithmetical claim. Little argument has been supplied in favour of orthodoxy, and work of Field, Warren and Waxman, and others suggests that the presumption in its favour is unjustified. This paper supports orthodoxy by establishing the determinacy of arithmetic in a well-motivated modal plural logic. Recasting this result in higher-order logic reveals that even the nominalist who thinks that there are only finitely many things should think that (...)
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  • Categoricity by convention.Julien Murzi & Brett Topey - 2021 - Philosophical Studies 178 (10):3391-3420.
    On a widespread naturalist view, the meanings of mathematical terms are determined, and can only be determined, by the way we use mathematical language—in particular, by the basic mathematical principles we’re disposed to accept. But it’s mysterious how this can be so, since, as is well known, minimally strong first-order theories are non-categorical and so are compatible with countless non-isomorphic interpretations. As for second-order theories: though they typically enjoy categoricity results—for instance, Dedekind’s categoricity theorem for second-order and Zermelo’s quasi-categoricity theorem (...)
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  • Level theory, part 1: Axiomatizing the bare idea of a cumulative hierarchy of sets.Tim Button - 2021 - Bulletin of Symbolic Logic 27 (4):436-460.
    The following bare-bones story introduces the idea of a cumulative hierarchy of pure sets: 'Sets are arranged in stages. Every set is found at some stage. At any stage S: for any sets found before S, we find a set whose members are exactly those sets. We find nothing else at S.' Surprisingly, this story already guarantees that the sets are arranged in well-ordered levels, and suffices for quasi-categoricity. I show this by presenting Level Theory, a simplification of set theories (...)
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  • Σ01 soundness isn’t enough: Number theoretic indeterminacy’s unsavory physical commitments.Sharon Berry - 2023 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 74 (2):469-484.
    It’s sometimes suggested that we can (in a sense) settle the truth-value of some statements in the language of number theory by stipulation, adopting either φ or ¬φ as an additional axiom. For example, in Clarke-Doane (2020b) and a series of recent APA presentations, Clarke-Doane suggests that any Σ01 sound expansion of our current arithmetical practice would express a truth. In this paper, I’ll argue that (given a certain popular assumption about the model-theoretic representability of languages like ours) we can’t (...)
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  • Infinite Reasoning.Jared Warren - 2020 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 103 (2):385-407.
    Our relationship to the infinite is controversial. But it is widely agreed that our powers of reasoning are finite. I disagree with this consensus; I think that we can, and perhaps do, engage in infinite reasoning. Many think it is just obvious that we can't reason infinitely. This is mistaken. Infinite reasoning does not require constructing infinitely long proofs, nor would it gift us with non-recursive mental powers. To reason infinitely we only need an ability to perform infinite inferences. I (...)
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  • Disquotationalism and the Compositional Principles.Richard Kimberly Heck - 2021 - In Carlo Nicolai & Johannes Stern (eds.), Modes of Truth: The Unified Approach to Truth, Modality, and Paradox. New York, NY: Routledge. pp. 105--50.
    What Bar-On and Simmons call 'Conceptual Deflationism' is the thesis that truth is a 'thin' concept in the sense that it is not suited to play any explanatory role in our scientific theorizing. One obvious place it might play such a role is in semantics, so disquotationalists have been widely concerned to argued that 'compositional principles', such as -/- (C) A conjunction is true iff its conjuncts are true -/- are ultimately quite trivial and, more generally, that semantic theorists have (...)
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  • Structural Relativity and Informal Rigour.Neil Barton - 2022 - In Gianluigi Oliveri, Claudio Ternullo & Stefano Boscolo (eds.), Objects, Structures, and Logics, FilMat Studies in the Philosophy of Mathematics. Springer. pp. 133-174.
    Informal rigour is the process by which we come to understand particular mathematical structures and then manifest this rigour through axiomatisations. Structural relativity is the idea that the kinds of structures we isolate are dependent upon the logic we employ. We bring together these ideas by considering the level of informal rigour exhibited by our set-theoretic discourse, and argue that different foundational programmes should countenance different underlying logics (intermediate between first- and second-order) for formulating set theory. By bringing considerations of (...)
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  • Maddy On The Multiverse.Claudio Ternullo - 2019 - In Stefania Centrone, Deborah Kant & Deniz Sarikaya (eds.), Reflections on the Foundations of Mathematics: Univalent Foundations, Set Theory and General Thoughts. Springer Verlag. pp. 43-78.
    Penelope Maddy has recently addressed the set-theoretic multiverse, and expressed reservations on its status and merits ([Maddy, 2017]). The purpose of the paper is to examine her concerns, by using the interpretative framework of set-theoretic naturalism. I first distinguish three main forms of 'multiversism', and then I proceed to analyse Maddy's concerns. Among other things, I take into account salient aspects of multiverse-related mathematics , in particular, research programmes in set theory for which the use of the multiverse seems to (...)
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  • Supertasks and Arithmetical Truth.Jared Warren & Daniel Waxman - 2020 - Philosophical Studies 177 (5):1275-1282.
    This paper discusses the relevance of supertask computation for the determinacy of arithmetic. Recent work in the philosophy of physics has made plausible the possibility of supertask computers, capable of running through infinitely many individual computations in a finite time. A natural thought is that, if supertask computers are possible, this implies that arithmetical truth is determinate. In this paper we argue, via a careful analysis of putative arguments from supertask computations to determinacy, that this natural thought is mistaken: supertasks (...)
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  • Metalogic and the Overgeneration Argument.Salvatore Florio & Luca Incurvati - 2019 - Mind 128 (511):761-793.
    A prominent objection against the logicality of second-order logic is the so-called Overgeneration Argument. However, it is far from clear how this argument is to be understood. In the first part of the article, we examine the argument and locate its main source, namely, the alleged entanglement of second-order logic and mathematics. We then identify various reasons why the entanglement may be thought to be problematic. In the second part of the article, we take a metatheoretic perspective on the matter. (...)
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  • Reply to Øystein Linnebo and Stewart Shapiro.Ian Rumfitt - 2019 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 62 (7):842-858.
    ABSTRACTIn reply to Linnebo, I defend my analysis of Tait's argument against the use of classical logic in set theory, and make some preliminary comments on Linnebo's new argument for the same conclusion. I then turn to Shapiro's discussion of intuitionistic analysis and of Smooth Infinitesimal Analysis. I contend that we can make sense of intuitionistic analysis, but only by attaching deviant meanings to the connectives. Whether anyone can make sense of SIA is open to doubt: doing so would involve (...)
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  • Set Theory and Structures.Neil Barton & Sy-David Friedman - 2019 - In Stefania Centrone, Deborah Kant & Deniz Sarikaya (eds.), Reflections on the Foundations of Mathematics: Univalent Foundations, Set Theory and General Thoughts. Springer Verlag. pp. 223-253.
    Set-theoretic and category-theoretic foundations represent different perspectives on mathematical subject matter. In particular, category-theoretic language focusses on properties that can be determined up to isomorphism within a category, whereas set theory admits of properties determined by the internal structure of the membership relation. Various objections have been raised against this aspect of set theory in the category-theoretic literature. In this article, we advocate a methodological pluralism concerning the two foundational languages, and provide a theory that fruitfully interrelates a `structural' perspective (...)
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  • Non-ontological Structuralism†.Michael Resnik - 2019 - Philosophia Mathematica 27 (3):303-315.
    ABSTRACT Historical structuralist views have been ontological. They either deny that there are any mathematical objects or they maintain that mathematical objects are structures or positions in them. Non-ontological structuralism offers no account of the nature of mathematical objects. My own structuralism has evolved from an early sui generis version to a non-ontological version that embraces Quine’s doctrine of ontological relativity. In this paper I further develop and explain this view.
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  • Modal Structuralism Simplified.Sharon Berry - 2018 - Canadian Journal of Philosophy 48 (2):200-222.
    Since Benacerraf’s ‘What Numbers Could Not Be, ’ there has been a growing interest in mathematical structuralism. An influential form of mathematical structuralism, modal structuralism, uses logical possibility and second order logic to provide paraphrases of mathematical statements which don’t quantify over mathematical objects. These modal structuralist paraphrases are a useful tool for nominalists and realists alike. But their use of second order logic and quantification into the logical possibility operator raises concerns. In this paper, I show that the work (...)
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  • Deflationism, Arithmetic, and the Argument from Conservativeness.Daniel Waxman - 2017 - Mind 126 (502):429-463.
    Many philosophers believe that a deflationist theory of truth must conservatively extend any base theory to which it is added. But when applied to arithmetic, it's argued, the imposition of a conservativeness requirement leads to a serious objection to deflationism: for the Gödel sentence for Peano Arithmetic is not a theorem of PA, but becomes one when PA is extended by adding plausible principles governing truth. This paper argues that no such objection succeeds. The issue turns on how we understand (...)
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  • Quantifier Variance and Indefinite Extensibility.Jared Warren - 2017 - Philosophical Review 126 (1):81-122.
    This essay clarifies quantifier variance and uses it to provide a theory of indefinite extensibility that I call the variance theory of indefinite extensibility. The indefinite extensibility response to the set-theoretic paradoxes sees each argument for paradox as a demonstration that we have come to a different and more expansive understanding of ‘all sets’. But indefinite extensibility is philosophically puzzling: extant accounts are either metasemantically suspect in requiring mysterious mechanisms of domain expansion, or metaphysically suspect in requiring nonstandard assumptions about (...)
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  • A Metasemantic Challenge for Mathematical Determinacy.Jared Warren & Daniel Waxman - 2020 - Synthese 197 (2):477-495.
    This paper investigates the determinacy of mathematics. We begin by clarifying how we are understanding the notion of determinacy before turning to the questions of whether and how famous independence results bear on issues of determinacy in mathematics. From there, we pose a metasemantic challenge for those who believe that mathematical language is determinate, motivate two important constraints on attempts to meet our challenge, and then use these constraints to develop an argument against determinacy and discuss a particularly popular approach (...)
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  • (1 other version)Multiversism and Concepts of Set: How much Relativism is acceptable?Neil Barton - 2016 - In Francesca Boccuni & Andrea Sereni (eds.), Objectivity, Realism, and Proof. FilMat Studies in the Philosophy of Mathematics. Cham, Switzerland: Springer International Publishing. pp. 189-209.
    Multiverse Views in set theory advocate the claim that there are many universes of sets, no-one of which is canonical, and have risen to prominence over the last few years. One motivating factor is that such positions are often argued to account very elegantly for technical practice. While there is much discussion of the technical aspects of these views, in this paper I analyse a radical form of Multiversism on largely philosophical grounds. Of particular importance will be an account of (...)
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  • Maximality Principles in Set Theory.Luca Incurvati - 2017 - Philosophia Mathematica 25 (2):159-193.
    In set theory, a maximality principle is a principle that asserts some maximality property of the universe of sets or some part thereof. Set theorists have formulated a variety of maximality principles in order to settle statements left undecided by current standard set theory. In addition, philosophers of mathematics have explored maximality principles whilst attempting to prove categoricity theorems for set theory or providing criteria for selecting foundational theories. This article reviews recent work concerned with the formulation, investigation and justification (...)
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  • Structure and Categoricity: Determinacy of Reference and Truth Value in the Philosophy of Mathematics.Tim Button & Sean Walsh - 2016 - Philosophia Mathematica 24 (3):283-307.
    This article surveys recent literature by Parsons, McGee, Shapiro and others on the significance of categoricity arguments in the philosophy of mathematics. After discussing whether categoricity arguments are sufficient to secure reference to mathematical structures up to isomorphism, we assess what exactly is achieved by recent ‘internal’ renditions of the famous categoricity arguments for arithmetic and set theory.
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  • On Specifying Truth-Conditions.Agustín Rayo - 2008 - Philosophical Review 117 (3):385-443.
    This essay is a study of ontological commitment, focused on the special case of arithmetical discourse. It tries to get clear about what would be involved in a defense of the claim that arithmetical assertions are ontologically innocent and about why ontological innocence matters. The essay proceeds by questioning traditional assumptions about the connection between the objects that are used to specify the truth-conditions of a sentence, on the one hand, and the objects whose existence is required in order for (...)
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  • Richness and Reflection.Neil Barton - 2016 - Philosophia Mathematica 24 (3):330-359.
    A pervasive thought in contemporary philosophy of mathematics is that in order to justify reflection principles, one must hold universism: the view that there is a single universe of pure sets. I challenge this kind of reasoning by contrasting universism with a Zermelian form of multiversism. I argue that if extant justifications of reflection principles using notions of richness are acceptable for the universist, then the Zermelian can use similar justifications. However, I note that for some forms of richness argument, (...)
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  • When Do Some Things Form a Set?Simon Hewitt - 2015 - Philosophia Mathematica 23 (3):311-337.
    This paper raises the question under what circumstances a plurality forms a set, parallel to the Special Composition Question for mereology. The range of answers that have been proposed in the literature are surveyed and criticised. I argue that there is good reason to reject both the view that pluralities never form sets and the view that pluralities always form sets. Instead, we need to affirm restricted set formation. Casting doubt on the availability of any informative principle which will settle (...)
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  • Arithmetical Reflection and the Provability of Soundness.Walter Dean - 2015 - Philosophia Mathematica 23 (1):31-64.
    Proof-theoretic reflection principles are schemas which attempt to express the soundness of arithmetical theories within their own language, e.g., ${\mathtt{{Prov}_{\mathsf {PA}} \rightarrow \varphi }}$ can be understood to assert that any statement provable in Peano arithmetic is true. It has been repeatedly suggested that justification for such principles follows directly from acceptance of an arithmetical theory $\mathsf {T}$ or indirectly in virtue of their derivability in certain truth-theoretic extensions thereof. This paper challenges this consensus by exploring relationships between reflection principles (...)
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  • Necessarily Maybe. Quantifiers, Modality and Vagueness.Alessandro Torza - 2015 - In Quantifiers, Quantifiers, and Quantifiers. Themes in Logic, Metaphysics, and Language. (Synthese Library vol. 373). Springer. pp. 367-387.
    Languages involving modalities and languages involving vagueness have each been thoroughly studied. On the other hand, virtually nothing has been said about the interaction of modality and vagueness. This paper aims to start filling that gap. Section 1 is a discussion of various possible sources of vague modality. Section 2 puts forward a model theory for a quantified language with operators for modality and vagueness. The model theory is followed by a discussion of the resulting logic. In Section 3, the (...)
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  • Axiomatic truth, syntax and metatheoretic reasoning.Graham E. Leigh & Carlo Nicolai - 2013 - Review of Symbolic Logic 6 (4):613-636.
    Following recent developments in the literature on axiomatic theories of truth, we investigate an alternative to the widespread habit of formalizing the syntax of the object-language into the object-language itself. We first argue for the proposed revision, elaborating philosophical evidences in favor of it. Secondly, we present a general framework for axiomatic theories of truth with theories of syntax. Different choices of the object theory O will be considered. Moreover, some strengthenings of these theories will be introduced: we will consider (...)
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  • Hierarchies Ontological and Ideological.Øystein Linnebo & Agustín Rayo - 2012 - Mind 121 (482):269 - 308.
    Gödel claimed that Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory is 'what becomes of the theory of types if certain superfluous restrictions are removed'. The aim of this paper is to develop a clearer understanding of Gödel's remark, and of the surrounding philosophical terrain. In connection with this, we discuss some technical issues concerning infinitary type theories and the programme of developing the semantics for higher-order languages in other higher-order languages.
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  • Fundamental and Derivative Truths.J. R. G. Williams - 2010 - Mind 119 (473):103 - 141.
    This article investigates the claim that some truths are fundamentally or really true — and that other truths are not. Such a distinction can help us reconcile radically minimal metaphysical views with the verities of common sense. I develop an understanding of the distinction whereby Fundamentality is not itself a metaphysical distinction, but rather a device that must be presupposed to express metaphysical distinctions. Drawing on recent work by Rayo on anti-Quinean theories of ontological commitments, I formulate a rigourous theory (...)
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  • Presences of the Infinite: J.M. Coetzee and Mathematics.Peter Johnston - 2013 - Dissertation, Royal Holloway, University of London
    This thesis articulates the resonances between J. M. Coetzee's lifelong engagement with mathematics and his practice as a novelist, critic, and poet. Though the critical discourse surrounding Coetzee's literary work continues to flourish, and though the basic details of his background in mathematics are now widely acknowledged, his inheritance from that background has not yet been the subject of a comprehensive and mathematically- literate account. In providing such an account, I propose that these two strands of his intellectual trajectory not (...)
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  • Plato's Problem: An Introduction to Mathematical Platonism.Marco Panza & Andrea Sereni - 2013 - New York: Palgrave-Macmillan. Edited by Andrea Sereni & Marco Panza.
    What is mathematics about? And if it is about some sort of mathematical reality, how can we have access to it? This is the problem raised by Plato, which still today is the subject of lively philosophical disputes. This book traces the history of the problem, from its origins to its contemporary treatment. It discusses the answers given by Aristotle, Proclus and Kant, through Frege's and Russell's versions of logicism, Hilbert's formalism, Gödel's platonism, up to the the current debate on (...)
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  • Varieties of Indefinite Extensibility.Gabriel Uzquiano - 2015 - Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic 56 (1):147-166.
    We look at recent accounts of the indefinite extensibility of the concept set and compare them with a certain linguistic model of indefinite extensibility. We suggest that the linguistic model has much to recommend over alternative accounts of indefinite extensibility, and we defend it against three prima facie objections.
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  • Vom Zahlen zu den Zahlen: On the Relation Between Computation and Arithmetical Structuralism.L. Horsten - 2012 - Philosophia Mathematica 20 (3):275-288.
    This paper sketches an answer to the question how we, in our arithmetical practice, succeed in singling out the natural-number structure as our intended interpretation. It is argued that we bring this about by a combination of what we assert about the natural-number structure on the one hand, and our computational capacities on the other hand.
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  • Juxtaposition: A New Way to Combine Logics.Joshua Schechter - 2011 - Review of Symbolic Logic 4 (4):560-606.
    This paper develops a new framework for combining propositional logics, called "juxtaposition". Several general metalogical theorems are proved concerning the combination of logics by juxtaposition. In particular, it is shown that under reasonable conditions, juxtaposition preserves strong soundness. Under reasonable conditions, the juxtaposition of two consequence relations is a conservative extension of each of them. A general strong completeness result is proved. The paper then examines the philosophically important case of the combination of classical and intuitionist logics. Particular attention is (...)
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  • How Many Angels Can Dance on the Point of a Needle? Transcendental Theology Meets Modal Metaphysics.J. Hawthorne & G. Uzquiano - 2011 - Mind 120 (477):53-81.
    We argue that certain modal questions raise serious problems for a modal metaphysics on which we are permitted to quantify unrestrictedly over all possibilia. In particular, we argue that, on reasonable assumptions, both David Lewis's modal realism and Timothy Williamson's necessitism are saddled with the remarkable conclusion that there is some cardinal number of the form ℵα such that there could not be more than ℵα-many angels in existence. In the last section, we make use of similar ideas to draw (...)
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  • Models and Recursivity.Walter Dean - manuscript
    It is commonly held that the natural numbers sequence 0, 1, 2,... possesses a unique structure. Yet by a well known model theoretic argument, there exist non-standard models of the formal theory which is generally taken to axiomatize all of our practices and intentions pertaining to use of the term “natural number.” Despite the structural similarity of this argument to the influential set theoretic indeterminacy argument based on the downward L ̈owenheim-Skolem theorem, most theorists agree that the number theoretic version (...)
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  • Non-classical Metatheory for Non-classical Logics.Andrew Bacon - 2013 - Journal of Philosophical Logic 42 (2):335-355.
    A number of authors have objected to the application of non-classical logic to problems in philosophy on the basis that these non-classical logics are usually characterised by a classical metatheory. In many cases the problem amounts to more than just a discrepancy; the very phenomena responsible for non-classicality occur in the field of semantics as much as they do elsewhere. The phenomena of higher order vagueness and the revenge liar are just two such examples. The aim of this paper is (...)
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  • Categoricity, Open-Ended Schemas and Peano Arithmetic.Adrian Ludușan - 2015 - Logos and Episteme 6 (3):313-332.
    One of the philosophical uses of Dedekind’s categoricity theorem for Peano Arithmetic is to provide support for semantic realism. To this end, the logical framework in which the proof of the theorem is conducted becomes highly significant. I examine different proposals regarding these logical frameworks and focus on the philosophical benefits of adopting open-ended schemas in contrast to second order logic as the logical medium of the proof. I investigate Pederson and Rossberg’s critique of the ontological advantages of open-ended arithmetic (...)
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  • Too naturalist and not naturalist enough: Reply to Horsten.Luca Incurvati - 2008 - Erkenntnis 69 (2):261 - 274.
    Leon Horsten has recently claimed that the class of mathematical truths coincides with the class of theorems of ZFC. I argue that the naturalistic character of Horsten’s proposal undermines his contention that this claim constitutes an analogue of a thesis that Daniel Isaacson has advanced for PA. I argue, moreover, that Horsten’s defence of his claim against an obvious objection makes use of a distinction which is not available to him given his naturalistic approach. I suggest a way out of (...)
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  • Toward a Theory of Second-Order Consequence.Augustín Rayo & Gabriel Uzquiano - 1999 - Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic 40 (3):315-325.
    There is little doubt that a second-order axiomatization of Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory plus the axiom of choice (ZFC) is desirable. One advantage of such an axiomatization is that it permits us to express the principles underlying the first-order schemata of separation and replacement. Another is its almost-categoricity: M is a model of second-order ZFC if and only if it is isomorphic to a model of the form Vκ, ∈ ∩ (Vκ × Vκ) , for κ a strongly inaccessible ordinal.
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  • Ontic vagueness and metaphysical indeterminacy.J. Robert G. Williams - 2008 - Philosophy Compass 3 (4):763-788.
    Might it be that world itself, independently of what we know about it or how we represent it, is metaphysically indeterminate? This article tackles in turn a series of questions: In what sorts of cases might we posit metaphysical indeterminacy? What is it for a given case of indefiniteness to be 'metaphysical'? How does the phenomenon relate to 'ontic vagueness', the existence of 'vague objects', 'de re indeterminacy' and the like? How might the logic work? Are there reasons for postulating (...)
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  • Philosophy of mathematics.Leon Horsten - 2008 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
    If mathematics is regarded as a science, then the philosophy of mathematics can be regarded as a branch of the philosophy of science, next to disciplines such as the philosophy of physics and the philosophy of biology. However, because of its subject matter, the philosophy of mathematics occupies a special place in the philosophy of science. Whereas the natural sciences investigate entities that are located in space and time, it is not at all obvious that this is also the case (...)
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  • A Logic for Frege's Theorem.Richard Heck - 1999 - In Richard G. Heck (ed.), Frege’s Theorem: An Introduction. The Harvard Review of Philosophy.
    It has been known for a few years that no more than Pi-1-1 comprehension is needed for the proof of "Frege's Theorem". One can at least imagine a view that would regard Pi-1-1 comprehension axioms as logical truths but deny that status to any that are more complex—a view that would, in particular, deny that full second-order logic deserves the name. Such a view would serve the purposes of neo-logicists. It is, in fact, no part of my view that, say, (...)
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  • Speaking with Shadows: A Study of Neo‐Logicism.Fraser MacBride - 2003 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 54 (1):103-163.
    According to the species of neo-logicism advanced by Hale and Wright, mathematical knowledge is essentially logical knowledge. Their view is found to be best understood as a set of related though independent theses: (1) neo-fregeanism-a general conception of the relation between language and reality; (2) the method of abstraction-a particular method for introducing concepts into language; (3) the scope of logic-second-order logic is logic. The criticisms of Boolos, Dummett, Field and Quine (amongst others) of these theses are explicated and assessed. (...)
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  • Categoricity theorems and conceptions of set.Gabriel Uzquiano - 2002 - Journal of Philosophical Logic 31 (2):181-196.
    Two models of second-order ZFC need not be isomorphic to each other, but at least one is isomorphic to an initial segment of the other. The situation is subtler for impure set theory, but Vann McGee has recently proved a categoricity result for second-order ZFCU plus the axiom that the urelements form a set. Two models of this theory with the same universe of discourse need not be isomorphic to each other, but the pure sets of one are isomorphic to (...)
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  • On specifying truth-conditions.Jason M. Byron - manuscript
    I develop a technique for specifying truth-conditions.
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  • Mathematics and conceptual analysis.Antony Eagle - 2008 - Synthese 161 (1):67–88.
    Gödel argued that intuition has an important role to play in mathematical epistemology, and despite the infamy of his own position, this opinion still has much to recommend it. Intuitions and folk platitudes play a central role in philosophical enquiry too, and have recently been elevated to a central position in one project for understanding philosophical methodology: the so-called ‘Canberra Plan’. This philosophical role for intuitions suggests an analogous epistemology for some fundamental parts of mathematics, which casts a number of (...)
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  • Securing Arithmetical Determinacy.Sebastian G. W. Speitel - 2024 - Ergo: An Open Access Journal of Philosophy 11.
    The existence of non-standard models of first-order Peano-Arithmetic (PA) threatens to undermine the claim of the moderate mathematical realist that non-mysterious access to the natural number structure is possible on the basis of our best arithmetical theories. The move to logics stronger than FOL is denied to the moderate realist on the grounds that it merely shifts the indeterminacy “one level up” into the meta-theory by, illegitimately, assuming the determinacy of the notions needed to formulate such logics. This paper argues (...)
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