Naturalism and ontology

Philosophia Mathematica 3 (3):248-270 (1995)
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Abstract

Naturalism in philosophy is sometimes thought to imply both scientific realism and a brand of mathematical realism that has methodological consequences for the practice of mathematics. I suggest that naturalism does not yield such a brand of mathematical realism, that naturalism views ontology as irrelevant to mathematical methodology, and that approaching methodological questions from this naturalistic perspective illuminates issues and considerations previously overshadowed by (irrelevant) ontological concerns.

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Penelope J. Maddy
University of California, Irvine

Citations of this work

There is No Easy Road to Nominalism.M. Colyvan - 2010 - Mind 119 (474):285-306.
Abstract objects.Gideon Rosen - 2008 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Can the Eleatic Principle be Justified?Mark Colyvan - 1998 - Canadian Journal of Philosophy 28 (3):313-335.

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References found in this work

Two Dogmas of Empiricism.W. Quine - 1951 - [Longmans, Green].
Two Dogmas of Empiricism.Willard V. O. Quine - 1951 - Philosophical Review 60 (1):20–43.
Science Without Numbers: A Defence of Nominalism.Hartry H. Field - 1980 - Princeton, NJ, USA: Princeton University Press.
Mathematical truth.Paul Benacerraf - 1973 - Journal of Philosophy 70 (19):661-679.
From Mathematics to Philosophy.Hao Wang - 1974 - London and Boston: London.

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