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  1. A Taxonomy for Set-Theoretic Potentialism.Davide Sutto - 2024 - Philosophia Mathematica:1-28.
    Set-theoretic potentialism is one of the most lively trends in the philosophy of mathematics. Modal accounts of sets have been developed in two different ways. The first, initiated by Charles Parsons, focuses on sets as objects. The second, dating back to Hilary Putnam and Geoffrey Hellman, investigates set-theoretic structures. The paper identifies two strands of open issues, technical and conceptual, to clarify these two different, yet often conflated, views and categorize the potentialist approaches that have emerged in the contemporary debate. (...)
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  • Why do numbers exist? A psychologist constructivist account.Markus Pantsar - forthcoming - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy.
    In this paper, I study the kind of questions we can ask about the existence of numbers. In addition to asking whether numbers exist, and how, I argue that there is also a third relevant question: why numbers exist. In platonist and nominalist accounts this question may not make sense, but in the psychologist account I develop, it is as well-placed as the other two questions. In fact, there are two such why-questions: the causal why-question asks what causes numbers to (...)
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  • The iterative conception of function and the iterative conception of set.Tim Button - 2023 - In Carolin Antos, Neil Barton & Giorgio Venturi (eds.), The Palgrave Companion to the Philosophy of Set Theory. Palgrave.
    Hilary Putnam once suggested that “the actual existence of sets as ‘intangible objects’ suffers… from a generalization of a problem first pointed out by Paul Benacerraf… are sets a kind of function or are functions a sort of set?” Sadly, he did not elaborate; my aim, here, is to do so on his behalf. There are well-known methods for treating sets as functions and functions as sets. But these do not raise any obvious philosophical or foundational puzzles. For that, we (...)
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  • C.S. Peirce on Mathematical Practice: Objectivity and the Community of Inquirers.Maria Regina Brioschi - 2022 - Topoi 42 (1):221-233.
    What understanding of mathematical objectivity is promoted by Peirce’s pragmatism? Can Peirce’s theory help us to further comprehend the role of intersubjectivity in mathematics? This paper aims to answer such questions, with special reference to recent debates on mathematical practice, where Peirce is often quoted, although without a detailed scrutiny of his theses. In particular, the paper investigates the role of intersubjectivity in the constitution of mathematical objects according to Peirce. Generally speaking, this represents one of the key issues for (...)
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  • El Tractatus al rescate de Principia Mathematica: Ramsey y los fundamentos logicistas de las matemáticas.Emilio Méndez Pinto - 2022 - Critica 54 (161):43-69.
    Mi objetivo es discutir las principales dificultades que Frank P. Ramsey encontró en Principia Mathematica y la solución que, vía el Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, propuso al respecto. Sostengo que las principales dificultades que Ramsey encontró en Principia Mathematica están, todas, relacionadas con que Russell y Whitehead desatendieron la forma lógica de las proposiciones matemáticas, las cuales, según Ramsey, deben ser tautológicas.
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  • Modal and Hyperintensional Cognitivism and Modal and Hyperintensional Expressivism.David Elohim - manuscript
    This paper aims to provide a mathematically tractable background against which to model both modal and hyperintensional cognitivism and modal and hyperintensional expressivism. I argue that epistemic modal algebras, endowed with a hyperintensional, topic-sensitive epistemic two-dimensional truthmaker semantics, comprise a materially adequate fragment of the language of thought. I demonstrate, then, how modal expressivism can be regimented by modal coalgebraic automata, to which the above epistemic modal algebras are categorically dual. I examine five methods for modeling the dynamics of conceptual (...)
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  • Quantifier Variance, Mathematicians’ Freedom and the Revenge of Quinean Indispensability Worries.Sharon Berry - 2022 - Erkenntnis 87 (5):2201-2218.
    Invoking a form of quantifier variance promises to let us explain mathematicians’ freedom to introduce new kinds of mathematical objects in a way that avoids some problems for standard platonist and nominalist views. In this paper I’ll note that, despite traditional associations between quantifier variance and Carnapian rejection of metaphysics, Siderian realists about metaphysics can naturally be quantifier variantists. Unfortunately a variant on the Quinean indispensability argument concerning grounding seems to pose a problem for philosophers who accept this hybrid. However (...)
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  • Shadows of Syntax: Revitalizing Logical and Mathematical Conventionalism.Jared Warren - 2020 - New York, USA: Oxford University Press.
    What is the source of logical and mathematical truth? This book revitalizes conventionalism as an answer to this question. Conventionalism takes logical and mathematical truth to have their source in linguistic conventions. This was an extremely popular view in the early 20th century, but it was never worked out in detail and is now almost universally rejected in mainstream philosophical circles. Shadows of Syntax is the first book-length treatment and defense of a combined conventionalist theory of logic and mathematics. It (...)
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  • The Potential in Frege’s Theorem.Will Stafford - 2023 - Review of Symbolic Logic 16 (2):553-577.
    Is a logicist bound to the claim that as a matter of analytic truth there is an actual infinity of objects? If Hume’s Principle is analytic then in the standard setting the answer appears to be yes. Hodes’s work pointed to a way out by offering a modal picture in which only a potential infinity was posited. However, this project was abandoned due to apparent failures of cross-world predication. We re-explore this idea and discover that in the setting of the (...)
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  • The Many and the One: A Philosophical Study of Plural Logic.Salvatore Florio & Øystein Linnebo - 2021 - Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.
    Plural expressions found in natural languages allow us to talk about many objects simultaneously. Plural logic — a logical system that takes plurals at face value — has seen a surge of interest in recent years. This book explores its broader significance for philosophy, logic, and linguistics. What can plural logic do for us? Are the bold claims made on its behalf correct? After introducing plural logic and its main applications, the book provides a systematic analysis of the relation between (...)
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  • Review of: Hilary Putnam on Logic and Mathematics, by Geoffrey Hellman and Roy T. Cook (eds.). [REVIEW]Tim Button - 2019 - Mind 129 (516):1327-1337.
    Putnam’s most famous contribution to mathematical logic was his role in investigating Hilbert’s Tenth Problem; Putnam is the ‘P’ in the MRDP Theorem. This volume, though, focusses mostly on Putnam’s work on the philosophy of logic and mathematics. It is a somewhat bumpy ride. Of the twelve papers, two scarcely mention Putnam. Three others focus primarily on Putnam’s ‘Mathematics without foundations’ (1967), but with no interplay between them. The remaining seven papers apparently tackle unrelated themes. Some of this disjointedness would (...)
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  • (1 other version)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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  • Philosophy of Mathematical Practice — Motivations, Themes and Prospects†.Jessica Carter - 2019 - Philosophia Mathematica 27 (1):1-32.
    A number of examples of studies from the field ‘The Philosophy of Mathematical Practice’ (PMP) are given. To characterise this new field, three different strands are identified: an agent-based, a historical, and an epistemological PMP. These differ in how they understand ‘practice’ and which assumptions lie at the core of their investigations. In the last part a general framework, capturing some overall structure of the field, is proposed.
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  • Carnap* Replies.Geoffrey Hellman - 2018 - The Monist 101 (4):388-393.
    In an imagined dialogue between two figures called “Carnap*” and “Quine*” that appeared in the Library of Living Philosophers volume in 1986, certain proposals and clarifications of the linguistic doctrine were offered by Carnap* answering Quinean objections, but these were brushed aside rather breezily in a reply to this dialogue in the same volume by Quine himself. After a brief summary of the questions at issue in that earlier dialogue, Carnap* is here allowed a final reply, introducing yet another variant (...)
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  • Understanding the Progress of Science.C. D. McCoy - 2022 - In Insa Lawler, Kareem Khalifa & Elay Shech (eds.), Scientific Understanding and Representation: Modeling in the Physical Sciences. New York, NY: Routledge. pp. 353-369.
    Philosophical debates on how to account for the progress of science have traditionally divided along the realism-anti-realism axis. Relatively recent developments in epistemology, however, have opened up a new knowledge-understanding axis to the debate. This chapter presents a novel understanding-based account of scientific progress that takes its motivation from problem-solving practices in science. Problem-solving is characterized as a means of measuring degree of understanding, which is argued to be the principal epistemic (or cognitive) aim of science, over and against knowledge. (...)
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  • Conversational Exculpature.Daniel Hoek - 2018 - Philosophical Review 127 (2):151-196.
    Conversational exculpature is a pragmatic process whereby information is subtracted from, rather than added to, what the speaker literally says. This pragmatic content subtraction explains why we can say “Rob is six feet tall” without implying that Rob is between 5'0.99" and 6'0.01" tall, and why we can say “Ellen has a hat like the one Sherlock Holmes always wears” without implying Holmes exists or has a hat. This article presents a simple formalism for understanding this pragmatic mechanism, specifying how, (...)
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  • (1 other version)The Necessity of Mathematics.Juhani Yli‐Vakkuri & John Hawthorne - 2018 - Noûs 52 (3):549-577.
    Some have argued for a division of epistemic labor in which mathematicians supply truths and philosophers supply their necessity. We argue that this is wrong: mathematics is committed to its own necessity. Counterfactuals play a starring role.
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  • Actual and Potential Infinity.Øystein Linnebo & Stewart Shapiro - 2017 - Noûs 53 (1):160-191.
    The notion of potential infinity dominated in mathematical thinking about infinity from Aristotle until Cantor. The coherence and philosophical importance of the notion are defended. Particular attention is paid to the question of whether potential infinity is compatible with classical logic or requires a weaker logic, perhaps intuitionistic.
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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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  • Hyperintensional Foundations of Mathematical Platonism.David Elohim - manuscript
    This paper aims to provide hyperintensional foundations for mathematical platonism. I examine Hale and Wright's (2009) objections to the merits and need, in the defense of mathematical platonism and its epistemology, of the thesis of Necessitism. In response to Hale and Wright's objections to the role of epistemic and metaphysical modalities in providing justification for both the truth of abstraction principles and the success of mathematical predicate reference, I examine the Necessitist commitments of the abundant conception of properties endorsed by (...)
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  • Hyperintensional Category Theory and Indefinite Extensibility.David Elohim - manuscript
    This essay endeavors to define the concept of indefinite extensibility in the setting of category theory. I argue that the generative property of indefinite extensibility for set-theoretic truths in category theory is identifiable with the Grothendieck Universe Axiom and the elementary embeddings in Vopenka's principle. The interaction between the interpretational and objective modalities of indefinite extensibility is defined via the epistemic interpretation of two-dimensional semantics. The semantics can be defined intensionally or hyperintensionally. By characterizing the modal profile of $\Omega$-logical validity, (...)
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  • (1 other version)Forms of Luminosity: Epistemic Modality and Hyperintensionality in Mathematics.David Elohim - 2017 - Dissertation, Arché, University of St Andrews
    This book concerns the foundations of epistemic modality and hyperintensionality and their applications to the philosophy of mathematics. David Elohim examines the nature of epistemic modality, when the modal operator is interpreted as concerning both apriority and conceivability, as well as states of knowledge and belief. The book demonstrates how epistemic modality and hyperintensionality relate to the computational theory of mind; metaphysical modality and hyperintensionality; the types of mathematical modality and hyperintensionality; to the epistemic status of large cardinal axioms, undecidable (...)
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  • (1 other version)Forms of Luminosity: Epistemic Modality and Hyperintensionality in Mathematics.David Elohim - 2017
    This book concerns the foundations of epistemic modality and hyperintensionality and their applications to the philosophy of mathematics. David Elohim examines the nature of epistemic modality, when the modal operator is interpreted as concerning both apriority and conceivability, as well as states of knowledge and belief. The book demonstrates how epistemic modality and hyperintensionality relate to the computational theory of mind; metaphysical modality and hyperintensionality; the types of mathematical modality and hyperintensionality; to the epistemic status of large cardinal axioms, undecidable (...)
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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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  • Modal science.Timothy Williamson - 2016 - Canadian Journal of Philosophy 46 (4-5):453-492.
    This paper explains and defends the idea that metaphysical necessity is the strongest kind of objective necessity. Plausible closure conditions on the family of objective modalities are shown to entail that the logic of metaphysical necessity is S5. Evidence is provided that some objective modalities are studied in the natural sciences. In particular, the modal assumptions implicit in physical applications of dynamical systems theory are made explicit by using such systems to define models of a modal temporal logic. Those assumptions (...)
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  • 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.
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  • (1 other version)Abstract Objects: A Case Study.Stephen Yablo - 2002 - Philosophical Issues 12 (1):220-240.
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  • Wabi-Sabi Mathematics.Jean-Francois Maheux - unknown
    Mathematics and aesthetics have a long history in common. In this relation however, the aesthetic dimension of mathematics largely refers to concepts such as purity, absoluteness, symmetry, and so on. In stark contrast to such a nexus of ideas, the Japanese aesthetic of wabi-sabi values imperfections, temporality, incompleteness, earthly crudeness, and even contradiction. In this paper, I discuss the possibilities of “wabi-sabi mathematics” by showing how wabi-sabi mathematics is conceivable; how wabi-sabi mathematics is observable; and why we should bother about (...)
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  • Hierarchical Propositions.Bruno Whittle - 2017 - Journal of Philosophical Logic 46 (2):215-231.
    The notion of a proposition is central to philosophy. But it is subject to paradoxes. A natural response is a hierarchical account and, ever since Russell proposed his theory of types in 1908, this has been the strategy of choice. But in this paper I raise a problem for such accounts. While this does not seem to have been recognized before, it would seem to render existing such accounts inadequate. The main purpose of the paper, however, is to provide a (...)
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  • (1 other version)Scientific Pluralism.Stephen H. Kellert, Helen E. Longino & C. Kenneth Waters (eds.) - 1956 - Univ of Minnesota Press.
    Scientific pluralism is an issue at the forefront of philosophy of science. This landmark work addresses the question, Can pluralism be advanced as a general, philosophical interpretation of science?
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  • Non-deductive Logic in Mathematics: The Probability of Conjectures.James Franklin - 2013 - In Andrew Aberdein & Ian J. Dove (eds.), The Argument of Mathematics. Dordrecht, Netherland: Springer. pp. 11--29.
    Mathematicians often speak of conjectures, yet unproved, as probable or well-confirmed by evidence. The Riemann Hypothesis, for example, is widely believed to be almost certainly true. There seems no initial reason to distinguish such probability from the same notion in empirical science. Yet it is hard to see how there could be probabilistic relations between the necessary truths of pure mathematics. The existence of such logical relations, short of certainty, is defended using the theory of logical probability (or objective Bayesianism (...)
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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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  • Numbers and Everything.Gonçalo Santos - 2013 - Philosophia Mathematica 21 (3):297-308.
    I begin by drawing a parallel between the intuitionistic understanding of quantification over all natural numbers and the generality relativist understanding of quantification over absolutely everything. I then argue that adoption of an intuitionistic reading of relativism not only provides an immediate reply to the absolutist's charge of incoherence but it also throws a new light on the debates surrounding absolute generality.
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  • What are groups?Katherine Ritchie - 2013 - Philosophical Studies 166 (2):257-272.
    In this paper I argue for a view of groups, things like teams, committees, clubs and courts. I begin by examining features all groups seem to share. I formulate a list of six features of groups that serve as criteria any adequate theory of groups must capture. Next, I examine four of the most prominent views of groups currently on offer—that groups are non-singular pluralities, fusions, aggregates and sets. I argue that each fails to capture one or more of the (...)
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  • 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 (...)
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  • Arithmetical Fiction.Steven Wagner - 1982 - Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 63 (3):255--69.
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  • Circularity and Paradox.Stephen Yablo - 2008 - In Thomas Bolander (ed.), Self-reference. Center for the Study of Language and Inf. pp. 139--157.
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  • Logique mathématique et philosophie des mathématiques.Yvon Gauthier - 1971 - Dialogue 10 (2):243-275.
    Pour le philosophe intéressé aux structures et aux fondements du savoir théorétique, à la constitution d'une « méta-théorétique «, θεωρíα., qui, mieux que les « Wissenschaftslehre » fichtéenne ou husserlienne et par-delà les débris de la métaphysique, veut dans une intention nouvelle faire la synthèse du « théorétique », la logique mathématique se révèle un objet privilégié.
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  • (2 other versions)Nominalism.Zoltan Szabo - 2003 - In Michael J. Loux & Dean W. Zimmerman (eds.), The Oxford handbook of metaphysics. New York: Oxford University Press.
    …entities? 2. How to be a nominalist 2.1. “Speak with the vulgar …” 2.2. “…think with the learned” 3. Arguments for nominalism 3.1. Intelligibility, physicalism, and economy 3.2. Causal..
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  • Fictionalism in the philosophy of mathematics.Mark Balaguer - 2008 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
    Mathematical fictionalism (or as I'll call it, fictionalism) is best thought of as a reaction to mathematical platonism. Platonism is the view that (a) there exist abstract mathematical objects (i.e., nonspatiotemporal mathematical objects), and (b) our mathematical sentences and theories provide true descriptions of such objects. So, for instance, on the platonist view, the sentence ‘3 is prime’ provides a straightforward description of a certain object—namely, the number 3—in much the same way that the sentence ‘Mars is red’ provides a (...)
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  • (1 other version)Abstract objects.Gideon Rosen - 2008 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
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  • (1 other version)Platonism in metaphysics.Mark Balaguer - 2008 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
    Platonism is the view that there exist such things as abstract objects — where an abstract object is an object that does not exist in space or time and which is therefore entirely non-physical and nonmental. Platonism in this sense is a contemporary view. It is obviously related to the views of Plato in important ways, but it is not entirely clear that Plato endorsed this view, as it is defined here. In order to remain neutral on this question, the (...)
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  • How to think quantum-logically.Hilary Putnam - 1974 - Synthese 29 (1-4):55 - 61.
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  • Quantifying over the reals.Philip Hugly & Charles Sayward - 1994 - Synthese 101 (1):53 - 64.
    Peter Geach proposed a substitutional construal of quantification over thirty years ago. It is not standardly substitutional since it is not tied to those substitution instances currently available to us; rather, it is pegged to possible substitution instances. We argue that (i) quantification over the real numbers can be construed substitutionally following Geach's idea; (ii) a price to be paid, if it is that, is intuitionism; (iii) quantification, thus conceived, does not in itself relieve us of ontological commitment to real (...)
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  • Tharp's 'Myth and Mathematics'.Charles Chihara - 1989 - Synthese 81 (2):153 - 165.
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  • 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 (...)
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  • 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 (...)
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  • Platonic number in the parmenides and metaphysics XIII.Dougal Blyth - 2000 - International Journal of Philosophical Studies 8 (1):23 – 45.
    I argue here that a properly Platonic theory of the nature of number is still viable today. By properly Platonic, I mean one consistent with Plato's own theory, with appropriate extensions to take into account subsequent developments in mathematics. At Parmenides 143a-4a the existence of numbers is proven from our capacity to count, whereby I establish as Plato's the theory that numbers are originally ordinal, a sequence of forms differentiated by position. I defend and interpret Aristotle's report of a Platonic (...)
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  • On the philosophical relevance of Gödel's incompleteness theorems.Panu Raatikainen - 2005 - Revue Internationale de Philosophie 59 (4):513-534.
    A survey of more philosophical applications of Gödel's incompleteness results.
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  • The Epistemological Subject(s) of Mathematics.Silvia De Toffoli - 2024 - In Bharath Sriraman (ed.), Handbook of the History and Philosophy of Mathematical Practice. Cham: Springer. pp. 1-27.
    Paying attention to the inner workings of mathematicians has led to a proliferation of new themes in the philosophy of mathematics. Several of these have to do with epistemology. Philosophers of mathematical practice, however, have not (yet) systematically engaged with general (analytic) epistemology. To be sure, there are some exceptions, but they are few and far between. In this chapter, I offer an explanation of why this might be the case and show how the situation could be remedied. I contend (...)
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