Putting structuralism in its place
| Abstract | One textbook may introduce the real numbers in Cantor’s way, and another in Dedekind’s, and the mathematical community as a whole will be completely indifferent to the choice between the two. This sort of phenomenon was famously called to the attention of philosophers by Paul Benacerraf. It will be argued that structuralism in philosophy of mathematics is a mistake, a generalization of Benacerraf’s observation in the wrong direction, resulting from philosophers’ preoccupation with ontology. | |||||||||
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Similar books and articlesGeoffrey Hellman (2001). Three Varieties of Mathematical Structuralism. Philosophia Mathematica 9 (2):184-211.
Audrey Yap (2009). Logical Structuralism and Benacerraf's Problem. Synthese 171 (1).
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