Mathematical Nominalism

Edited by Rafal Urbaniak (Uniwersytetu Gdanskiego, Uniwersytetu Gdanskiego)
Assistant editors: Pawel Pawlowski, Sam Roberts
About this topic
Summary One way to avoid epistemic challenges that mathematical platonism runs into (how can mundane human beings have knowledge of aspatial and atemporal abstract objects?) and to develop a more naturalistically acceptable account of mathematical knowledge is to deny the existence of mathematical objects. The main challenge, if you follow this path, is to make sense of mathematics, of mathematical practice and of the applicability of mathematics without reference to abstract objects.  
Key works In the twentieth century early serious attempts at constructing nominalistic foundations of mathematics are due to S.Leśniewski (see Simons 2008 for a survey, Leśniewski et al 1991 and Urbaniak 2013 for details). The second major attempt is Goodman & Quine 1947. Nominalistic literature started flourishing in 1980s. The main proposals include: Chihara 1990 (see also a later book S. Chihara 2003), Field 1980, Gottlieb 1980, Hellman 1989 and  Azzouni 2004. See Burgess & Rosen 1997 for further references.
Introductions A well-written, although somewhat hostile, survey of nominalistic options is Burgess & Rosen 1997. A reasoned overview of philosophical motivations of nominalism can be found in Chihara 1990 and S. Chihara 2003
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  1. Nominalism and Immutability.Daniel Berntson - manuscript
    Can we do science without numbers? How much contingency is there? These seemingly unrelated questions--one in the philosophy of math and science and the other in metaphysics--share an unexpectedly close connection. For as it turns out, a radical answer to the second leads to a breakthrough on the first. The radical answer is new view about modality called compossible immutabilism. The breakthrough is a new strategy for doing science without numbers. One of the chief benefits of the new strategy is (...)
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  2. Reality Realism.Sean M. Carroll - manuscript
    In Morality & Mathematics, Justin Clarke-Doane argues that it is hard to imagine being "a realist about, for example, the standard model of particle physics, but not about mathematics." I try to explain how that seems very possible from the perspective of a physicist. What is real is the physical world; mathematics starts from descriptions of the natural world and extrapolates from there, but that extrapolation does not imply any independent reality. -/- Submitted to an Analysis Reviews symposium on Clarke-Doane's (...)
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  3. An Intrinsic Theory of Quantum Mechanics: Progress in Field's Nominalistic Program, Part I.Eddy Keming Chen - manuscript
    In this paper, I introduce an intrinsic account of the quantum state. This account contains three desirable features that the standard platonistic account lacks: (1) it does not refer to any abstract mathematical objects such as complex numbers, (2) it is independent of the usual arbitrary conventions in the wave function representation, and (3) it explains why the quantum state has its amplitude and phase degrees of freedom. -/- Consequently, this account extends Hartry Field’s program outlined in Science Without Numbers (...)
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  4. A few historical-critical glances on mathematical ontology through the Hermann Weyl and Edmund Husserl works.Giuseppe Iurato - manuscript
    From the general history of culture, with a particular attention turned towards the personal and intellectual relationships between Hermann Weyl and Edmund Husserl, it will be possible to identify certain historical-critical moments from which a philosophical reflection concerning aspects of the ontology of mathematics may be carried out. In particular, a notable epistemological relevance of group theory methods will stand out.
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  5. Names and Objects.Dan Kurth - manuscript
    In this paper I try to fortify the nominalistic objectology (cf. Meinong's 'Gegenstandstheorie') with essentialist means. This also is intended as a preparation for introducing Information Monism.
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  6. A Sketch of a Sirenia: Meros Theory.Dan Kurth - manuscript
    This sketch of a perhaps future 'Elementary Theory of the Category of Mereological Sums (including Mereological Wholes and Parts)' relates to my previous papers "The Topos of Emergence" and "Intelligible Gunk". I assert that for successfully categorizing Mereology one has to start with a specific setting of gunk. In this paper we will give a sketch of a categorically version of particular mereological structures. I.e. we will follow the example of F.W.Lawvere’s “An elementary theory of the category of sets” -/- (...)
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  7. Nominalist Neologicism.Rafal Urbaniak - manuscript
    The goal is to sketch a nominalist approach to mathematics which just like neologicism employs abstraction principles, but unlike neologicism is not committed to the idea that mathematical objects exist and does not insist that abstraction principles establish the reference of abstract terms. It is well-known that neologicism runs into certain philosophical problems and faces the technical difficulty of finding appropriate acceptability criteria for abstraction principles. I will argue that a modal and iterative nominalist approach to abstraction principles circumvents those (...)
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  8. Why Can’t There Be Numbers?David Builes - forthcoming - The Philosophical Quarterly.
    Platonists affirm the existence of abstract mathematical objects, and Nominalists deny the existence of abstract mathematical objects. While there are standard arguments in favor of Nominalism, these arguments fail to account for the necessity of Nominalism. Furthermore, these arguments do nothing to explain why Nominalism is true. They only point to certain theoretical vices that might befall the Platonist. The goal of this paper is to formulate and defend a simple, valid argument for the necessity of Nominalism that seeks to (...)
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  9. Platonism, Nominalism, and Semantic Appearances.Justin Clarke-Doane - forthcoming - Logique Et Analyse.
    It is widely assumed that platonism with respect to a discourse of metaphysical interest, such as fictional or mathematical discourse, affords a better account of the semantic appearances than nominalism, other things being equal. Of course, other things may not be equal. For example, platonism is supposed to come at the cost of a plausible epistemology and ontology. But the hedged claim is often treated as a background assumption. It is motivated by the intuitively stronger one that the platonist can (...)
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  10. Is Fourier Analysis Conservative over Physical Theory?Nicholas Danne - forthcoming - Logique Et Analyse.
    Hartry Field argues that conservative rather than true mathematical sentences facilitate deductions in nominalist (i.e., abstracta-free) science without prejudging its empirical outcomes. In this paper, I identify one branch of mathematics as nonconservative, for its indispensable role in enabling nominalist language about a fundamental scientific property, in a fictional scientific community. The fundamental property is electromagnetic reflectance, and the mathematics is Fourier analysis, which renders reflectance ascribable, and nominalist reflectance claims utterable, by this community. Using a recent characterization of conservativeness (...)
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  11. A Lewisian Argument Against Platonism, or Why Theses About Abstract Objects Are Unintelligible.Jack Himelright - 2023 - Erkenntnis 88 (7):3037–3057.
    In this paper, I argue that all expressions for abstract objects are meaningless. My argument closely follows David Lewis’ argument against the intelligibility of certain theories of possible worlds, but modifies it in order to yield a general conclusion about language pertaining to abstract objects. If my Lewisian argument is sound, not only can we not know that abstract objects exist, we cannot even refer to or think about them. However, while the Lewisian argument strongly motivates nominalism, it also undermines (...)
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  12. Applied Mathematics without Numbers.Jack Himelright - 2023 - Philosophia Mathematica 31 (2):147-175.
    In this paper, I develop a "safety result" for applied mathematics. I show that whenever a theory in natural science entails some non-mathematical conclusion via an application of mathematics, there is a counterpart theory that carries no commitment to mathematical objects, entails the same conclusion, and the claims of which are true if the claims of the original theory are "correct": roughly, true given the assumption that mathematical objects exist. The framework used for proving the safety result has some advantages (...)
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  13. 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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  14. The incubus of inter-translatability... a realist’s nightmare?: Penelope Rush: Ontology and the foundations of mathematics: talking past each other. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2022, 46 pp, $20 PB. [REVIEW]Nicholas Danne - 2022 - Metascience 32 (1):107-110.
  15. A Nominalist Alternative to Reference by Abstraction.Gareth Rhys Pearce - 2022 - Theoria 1:1-12.
    Theoria, EarlyView. -/- In his recent book Thin Objects, Øystein Linnebo (2018) argues for the existence of a hierarchy of abstract objects, sufficient to model ZFC, via a novel and highly interesting argument that relies on a process called dynamic abstraction. This paper presents a way for a nominalist, someone opposed to the existence of abstract objects, to avoid Linnebo's conclusion by rejecting his claim that certain abstraction principles are sufficient for reference (RBA). Section 1 of the paper explains Linnebo's (...)
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  16. 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 (...)
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  17. 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 (...)
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  18. Quine on naturalism, nominalism, and philosophy’s place within science.James Andrew Smith - 2021 - Synthese 198 (2):1549-1567.
    W.V. Quine is a well-known proponent of naturalism, the view on which reality is described only in science. He is also well-known for arguing that our current scientific theories commit us to the existence of abstract objects. It is tempting to believe that the naturalistic philosopher should think scientists outside of philosophy are in the best position to assess the merits of revising our current commitment to abstract objects. But Quine rejects this deferential view. On the reading of Quine’s philosophical (...)
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  19. Mathematical anti-realism and explanatory structure.Bruno Whittle - 2021 - Synthese 199 (3-4):6203-6217.
    Plausibly, mathematical claims are true, but the fundamental furniture of the world does not include mathematical objects. This can be made sense of by providing mathematical claims with paraphrases, which make clear how the truth of such claims does not require the fundamental existence of mathematical objects. This paper explores the consequences of this type of position for explanatory structure. There is an apparently straightforward relationship between this sort of structure, and the logical sort: i.e. logically complex claims are explained (...)
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  20. Counterfactual Scheming.Sam Baron - 2020 - Mind 129 (514):535-562.
    Mathematics appears to play a genuine explanatory role in science. But how do mathematical explanations work? Recently, a counterfactual approach to mathematical explanation has been suggested. I argue that such a view fails to differentiate the explanatory uses of mathematics within science from the non-explanatory uses. I go on to offer a solution to this problem by combining elements of the counterfactual theory of explanation with elements of a unification theory of explanation. The result is a theory according to which (...)
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  21. Mathematical surrealism as an alternative to easy-road fictionalism.Kenneth Boyce - 2020 - Philosophical Studies 177 (10):2815-2835.
    Easy-road mathematical fictionalists grant for the sake of argument that quantification over mathematical entities is indispensable to some of our best scientific theories and explanations. Even so they maintain we can accept those theories and explanations, without believing their mathematical components, provided we believe the concrete world is intrinsically as it needs to be for those components to be true. Those I refer to as “mathematical surrealists” by contrast appeal to facts about the intrinsic character of the concrete world, not (...)
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  22. Ptolemy’s Philosophy: Mathematics as a Way of Life. By Jacqueline Feke. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2018. Pp. xi + 234. [REVIEW]Nicholas Danne - 2020 - Metaphilosophy 51 (1):151-155.
  23. Classless.Sam Roberts - 2020 - Analysis 80 (1):76-83.
    Classes are a kind of collection. Typically, they are too large to be sets. For example, there are classes containing absolutely all sets even though there is no set of all sets. But what are classes, if not sets? When our theory of classes is relatively weak, this question can be avoided. In particular, it is well known that von Neuman–Bernays–Godel class theory is conservative over the standard axioms of set theory ): anything NGB can prove about the sets is (...)
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  24. Quine’s Intuition: Why Quine’s Early Nominalism is Naturalistic.James Andrew Smith - 2020 - Erkenntnis 85 (5):1199-1218.
    According to a growing consensus in the secondary literature on Quine, the judgment Quine makes in favor of the nominalism outlined in “Steps Toward a Constructive Nominalism” is in tension with the naturalism he later adopts. In this paper, I show the consensus view is mistaken by showing that Quine’s judgment is rooted in a naturalistic standard of clarity. Moreover, I argue that Quine late in his career is committed to accepting one plausible reading of his judgment in 1947. In (...)
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  25. The Idea of Continuity as Mathematical-Philosophical Invariant.Eldar Amirov - 2019 - Metafizika 2 (8):p. 87-100.
  26. Mathematical Explanation by Law.Sam Baron - 2019 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 70 (3):683-717.
    Call an explanation in which a non-mathematical fact is explained—in part or in whole—by mathematical facts: an extra-mathematical explanation. Such explanations have attracted a great deal of interest recently in arguments over mathematical realism. In this article, a theory of extra-mathematical explanation is developed. The theory is modelled on a deductive-nomological theory of scientific explanation. A basic DN account of extra-mathematical explanation is proposed and then redeveloped in the light of two difficulties that the basic theory faces. The final view (...)
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  27. Optimal representations and the Enhanced Indispensability Argument.Manuel Barrantes - 2019 - Synthese 196 (1):247-263.
    The Enhanced Indispensability Argument appeals to the existence of Mathematical Explanations of Physical Phenomena to justify mathematical Platonism, following the principle of Inference to the Best Explanation. In this paper, I examine one example of a MEPP—the explanation of the 13-year and 17-year life cycle of magicicadas—and argue that this case cannot be used defend the EIA. I then generalize my analysis of the cicada case to other MEPPs, and show that these explanations rely on what I will call ‘optimal (...)
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  28. Essays on the Metaphysics of Quantum Mechanics.Eddy Keming Chen - 2019 - Dissertation, Rutgers University, New Brunswick
    What is the proper metaphysics of quantum mechanics? In this dissertation, I approach the question from three different but related angles. First, I suggest that the quantum state can be understood intrinsically as relations holding among regions in ordinary space-time, from which we can recover the wave function uniquely up to an equivalence class (by representation and uniqueness theorems). The intrinsic account eliminates certain conventional elements (e.g. overall phase) in the representation of the quantum state. It also dispenses with first-order (...)
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  29. Hartry Field. Science Without Numbers: A Defense of Nominalism 2nd ed. [REVIEW]Geoffrey Hellman & Mary Leng - 2019 - Philosophia Mathematica 27 (1):139-148.
    FieldHartry. Science Without Numbers: A Defense of Nominalism 2nd ed.Oxford University Press, 2016. ISBN 978-0-19-877792-2. Pp. vi + 56 + vi + 111.
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  30. The Enhanced Indispensability Argument, the circularity problem, and the interpretability strategy.Jan Heylen & Lars Arthur Tump - 2019 - Synthese 198 (4):3033-3045.
    Within the context of the Quine–Putnam indispensability argument, one discussion about the status of mathematics is concerned with the ‘Enhanced Indispensability Argument’, which makes explicit in what way mathematics is supposed to be indispensable in science, namely explanatory. If there are genuine mathematical explanations of empirical phenomena, an argument for mathematical platonism could be extracted by using inference to the best explanation. The best explanation of the primeness of the life cycles of Periodical Cicadas is genuinely mathematical, according to Baker (...)
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  31. The Problem of Fregean Equivalents.Joongol Kim - 2019 - Dialectica 73 (3):367-394.
    It would seem that some statements like ‘There are exactly four moons of Jupiter’ and ‘The number of moons of Jupiter is four’ have the same truth-conditions and yet differ in ontological commitment. One strategy to resolve this paradoxical phenomenon is to insist that the statements have not only the same truth-conditions but also the same ontological commitments; the other strategy is to reject the presumption that they have the same truth-conditions. This paper critically examines some popular versions of these (...)
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  32. Deflationary Nominalism and Puzzle Avoidance.David Mark Kovacs - 2019 - Philosophia Mathematica 27 (1):88-104.
    In a series of works, Jody Azzouni has defended deflationary nominalism, the view that certain sentences quantifying over mathematical objects are literally true, although such objects do not exist. One alleged attraction of this view is that it avoids various philosophical puzzles about mathematical objects. I argue that this thought is misguided. I first develop an ontologically neutral counterpart of Field’s reliability challenge and argue that deflationary nominalism offers no distinctive answer to it. I then show how this reasoning generalizes (...)
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  33. Einführung in die Philosophie der Mathematik.Jörg Neunhäuserer - 2019 - Wiesbaden, Deutschland: Springer Spektrum.
    Welche Art von Gegenständen untersucht die Mathematik und in welchem Sinne existieren diese Gegenstände? Warum dürfen wir die Aussagen der Mathematik zu unserem Wissen zählen und wie lassen sich diese Aussagen rechtfertigen? Eine Philosophie der Mathematik versucht solche Fragen zu beantworten. In dieser Einführung stellen wir maßgeblichen Positionen in der Philosophie der Mathematik vor und formulieren die Essenz dieser Positionen in möglichst einfachen Thesen. Der Leser erfährt, auf welche Philosophen eine Position zurückgeht und in welchem historischen Kontext diese entstand. Ausgehend (...)
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  34. Can Mathematical Objects Be Causally Efficacious?Seungbae Park - 2019 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 62 (3):247–255.
    Callard (2007) argues that it is metaphysically possible that a mathematical object, although abstract, causally affects the brain. I raise the following objections. First, a successful defence of mathematical realism requires not merely the metaphysical possibility but rather the actuality that a mathematical object affects the brain. Second, mathematical realists need to confront a set of three pertinent issues: why a mathematical object does not affect other concrete objects and other mathematical objects, what counts as a mathematical object, and how (...)
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  35. Existence, Mathematical Nominalism, and Meta-Ontology: An Objection to Azzouni on Criteria for Existence.Farbod Akhlaghi-Ghaffarokh - 2018 - Philosophia Mathematica 26 (2):251-265.
    Jody Azzouni argues that whilst it is indeterminate what the criteria for existence are, there is a criterion that has been collectively adopted to use ‘exist’ that we can employ to argue for positions in ontology. I raise and defend a novel objection to Azzouni: his view has the counterintuitive consequence that the facts regarding what exists can and will change when users of the word ‘exist’ change what criteria they associate with its usage. Considering three responses, I argue Azzouni (...)
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  36. Indispensability, causation and explanation.Sorin Bangu - 2018 - Theoria : An International Journal for Theory, History and Fundations of Science 33 (2):219-232.
    When considering mathematical realism, some scientific realists reject it, and express sympathy for the opposite view, mathematical nominalism; moreover, many justify this option by invoking the causal inertness of mathematical objects. The main aim of this note is to show that the scientific realists’ endorsement of this causal mathematical nominalism is in tension with another position some of them also accept, the doctrine of methodological naturalism. By highlighting this conflict, I intend to tip the balance in favor of a rival (...)
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  37. The Reality of Field’s Epistemological Challenge to Platonism.David Liggins - 2018 - Erkenntnis 83 (5):1027-1031.
    In the introduction to his Realism, mathematics and modality, and in earlier papers included in that collection, Hartry Field offered an epistemological challenge to platonism in the philosophy of mathematics. Justin Clarke-Doane Truth, objects, infinity: New perspectives on the philosophy of Paul Benacerraf, 2016) argues that Field’s challenge is an illusion: it does not pose a genuine problem for platonism. My aim is to show that Clarke-Doane’s argument relies on a misunderstanding of Field’s challenge.
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  38. 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 (...)
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  39. How Mathematics Can Make a Difference.Sam Baron, Mark Colyvan & David Ripley - 2017 - Philosophers' Imprint 17.
    Standard approaches to counterfactuals in the philosophy of explanation are geared toward causal explanation. We show how to extend the counterfactual theory of explanation to non-causal cases, involving extra-mathematical explanation: the explanation of physical facts by mathematical facts. Using a structural equation framework, we model impossible perturbations to mathematics and the resulting differences made to physical explananda in two important cases of extra-mathematical explanation. We address some objections to our approach.
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  40. Accessibility of reformulated mathematical content.Stefan Buijsman - 2017 - Synthese 194 (6).
    I challenge a claim that seems to be made when nominalists offer reformulations of the content of mathematical beliefs, namely that these reformulations are accessible to everyone. By doing so, I argue that these theories cannot account for the mathematical knowledge that ordinary people have. In the first part of the paper I look at reformulations that employ the concept of proof, such as those of Mary Leng and Ottavio Bueno. I argue that ordinary people don’t have many beliefs about (...)
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  41. Truth and Existence.Jan Heylen & Leon Horsten - 2017 - Thought: A Journal of Philosophy 6 (1):106-114.
    Halbach has argued that Tarski biconditionals are not ontologically conservative over classical logic, but his argument is undermined by the fact that he cannot include a theory of arithmetic, which functions as a theory of syntax. This article is an improvement on Halbach's argument. By adding the Tarski biconditionals to inclusive negative free logic and the universal closure of minimal arithmetic, which is by itself an ontologically neutral combination, one can prove that at least one thing exists. The result can (...)
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  42. A Generic Russellian Elimination of Abstract Objects.Kevin C. Klement - 2017 - Philosophia Mathematica 25 (1):91-115.
    In this paper I explore a position on which it is possible to eliminate the need for postulating abstract objects through abstraction principles by treating terms for abstracta as ‘incomplete symbols’, using Russell's no-classes theory as a template from which to generalize. I defend views of this stripe against objections, most notably Richard Heck's charge that syntactic forms of nominalism cannot correctly deal with non-first-orderizable quantifcation over apparent abstracta. I further discuss how number theory may be developed in a system (...)
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  43. Rigor and Structure, by John P. Burgess: Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015, pp. xii + 215, £35. [REVIEW]Toby Meadows - 2017 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 95 (2):397-400.
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  44. Number words as number names.Friederike Moltmann - 2017 - Linguistics and Philosophy 40 (4):331-345.
    This paper criticizes the view that number words in argument position retain the meaning they have on an adjectival or determiner use, as argued by Hofweber :179–225, 2005) and Moltmann :499–534, 2013a, 2013b). In particular the paper re-evaluates syntactic evidence from German given in Moltmann to that effect.
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  45. Boarding Neurath's Boat: The Early Development of Quine's Naturalism.Sander Verhaegh - 2017 - Journal of the History of Philosophy 55 (2):317-342.
    W. V. Quine is arguably the intellectual father of contemporary naturalism, the idea that there is no distinctively philosophical perspective on reality. Yet, even though Quine has always been a science-minded philosopher, he did not adopt a fully naturalistic perspective until the early 1950s. In this paper, I reconstruct the genesis of Quine’s ideas on the relation between science and philosophy. Scrutinizing his unpublished papers and notebooks, I examine Quine’s development in the first decades of his career. After identifying three (...)
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  46. Platonistic Physicalism without Tears.D. G. Witmer - 2017 - Journal of Consciousness Studies 24 (9-10):72-90.
    Susan Schneider argues that the entities to be identified as part of the 'physical base' for physicalism must be in part abstract and that this fact either falsifies physicalism or renders it so problematic as to be 'no physicalism worth having'. I accept the abstractness of the entities but argue both that physicalism is consistent with such and that none of the alleged problems for Platonistic physicalism are serious.
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  47. True Nominalism: Referring versus Coding.Jody Azzouni & Otávio Bueno - 2016 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 67 (3):781-816.
    One major motivation for nominalism, at least according to Hartry Field, is the desirability of intrinsic explanations: explanations that don’t invoke objects that are causally irrelevant to the phenomena being explained. There is something right about the search for such explanations. But that search must be carefully implemented. Nothing is gained if, to avoid a certain class of objects, one only introduces other objects and relations that are just as nominalistically questionable. We will argue that this is the case for (...)
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  48. Philosophy of Mathematics for the Masses : Extending the scope of the philosophy of mathematics.Stefan Buijsman - 2016 - Dissertation, Stockholm University
    One of the important discussions in the philosophy of mathematics, is that centered on Benacerraf’s Dilemma. Benacerraf’s dilemma challenges theorists to provide an epistemology and semantics for mathematics, based on their favourite ontology. This challenge is the point on which all philosophies of mathematics are judged, and clarifying how we might acquire mathematical knowledge is one of the main occupations of philosophers of mathematics. In this thesis I argue that this discussion has overlooked an important part of mathematics, namely mathematics (...)
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  49. Numerical cognition and mathematical realism.Helen De Cruz - 2016 - Philosophers' Imprint 16.
    Humans and other animals have an evolved ability to detect discrete magnitudes in their environment. Does this observation support evolutionary debunking arguments against mathematical realism, as has been recently argued by Clarke-Doane, or does it bolster mathematical realism, as authors such as Joyce and Sinnott-Armstrong have assumed? To find out, we need to pay closer attention to the features of evolved numerical cognition. I provide a detailed examination of the functional properties of evolved numerical cognition, and propose that they prima (...)
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  50. Carnap on Abstract and Theoretical Entities.Gregory Lavers - 2016 - In Ontology After Carnap.
    Carnap’s ‘Empiricism, Semantics, and Ontology’ (Carnap (1950a), ESO hereafter) is certainly a classic of twentieth century analytic philosophy. For decades now, most undergraduates are expected to read it at some point in their studies. Lately, it is being seen as the inspiration for a host of positions in the field of metaontology. Despite the widespread agreement on the importance of the paper, there is a lack of agreement on what Carnap attempts to do in the paper. My main aim in (...)
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