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Contrastive Empiricism and Indispensability
journal contribution
posted on 2023-05-16, 11:49 authored by Colyvan, MThe Quine-Putnam indispensability argument urges us to place mathematical entities on the same ontological footing as (other) theoretical entities of empirical science. Recently this argument has attracted much criticism, and in this paper I address one criticism due to Elliott Sober. Sober argues that mathematical theories cannot share the empirical support accrued by our best scientific theories, since mathematical propositions are not being tested in the same way as the clearly empirical propositions of science. In this paper I defend the Quine-Putnam argument against Sober's objections. © 1999 Kluwer Academic Publishers.
History
Publication title
ErkenntnisVolume
51Issue
2-3Pagination
323-332ISSN
0165-0106Department/School
School of HumanitiesPublisher
Springer NetherlandsPlace of publication
NetherlandsRepository Status
- Restricted