Nominalistic content, grounding, and covering generalizations: Reply to ‘Grounding and the indispensability argument’

Synthese 193 (2):549-558 (2016)
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Abstract

‘Grounding and the indispensability argument’ presents a number of ways in which nominalists can use the notion of grounding to rebut the indispensability argument for the existence of mathematical objects. I will begin by considering the strategy that puts grounding to the service of easy-road nominalists. I will give some support to this strategy by addressing a worry some may have about it. I will then consider a problem for the fast-lane strategy and a problem for easy-road nominalists willing to accept Liggins’ grounding strategy. Both are related to the problem of formulating nominalistic explanations at the right level of generality. I will then consider a problem that Liggins only hints at. This problem has to do with mathematics’ function of providing the sort of covering generalizations we need in scientific explanations

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Matteo Plebani
Università Degli Studi Di Torino

References found in this work

Metaphysical Dependence: Grounding and Reduction.Gideon Rosen - 2010 - In Bob Hale & Aviv Hoffmann (eds.), Modality: Metaphysics, Logic, and Epistemology. Oxford University Press. pp. 109-135.
There is No Easy Road to Nominalism.M. Colyvan - 2010 - Mind 119 (474):285-306.
Abstract Objects: A Case Study.Stephen Yablo - 2002 - Philosophical Issues 12 (1):220-240.

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