Ontology of Sets

Edited by Rafal Urbaniak (Uniwersytetu Gdanskiego, Uniwersytetu Gdanskiego)
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  1. The iterative conception of function and the iterative conception of set.Tim Button - forthcoming - In Carolin Antos, Neil Barton & Giorgio Venturi (eds.), The Palgrave Companion to the Philosophy of Set Theory. Palgrave.
    Hilary Putnam once suggested that “the actual existence of sets as ‘intangible objects’ suffers… from a generalization of a problem first pointed out by Paul Benacerraf… are sets a kind of function or are functions a sort of set?” Sadly, he did not elaborate; my aim, here, is to do so on his behalf. There are well-known methods for treating sets as functions and functions as sets. But these do not raise any obvious philosophical or foundational puzzles. For that, we (...)
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  2. Abstraction and Grounding.Louis deRosset & Øystein Linnebo - forthcoming - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research.
    The idea that some objects are metaphysically “cheap” has wide appeal. An influential version of the idea builds on abstractionist views in the philosophy of mathematics, on which numbers and other mathematical objects are abstracted from other phenomena. For example, Hume’s Principle states that two collections have the same number just in case they are equinumerous, in the sense that they can be correlated one-to-one: (HP) #xx=#yy iff xx≈yy. The principal aim of this article is to use the notion of (...)
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  3. 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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  4. Hilbert Mathematics versus Gödel Mathematics. III. Hilbert Mathematics by Itself, and Gödel Mathematics versus the Physical World within It: both as Its Particular Cases.Vasil Penchev - 2023 - Philosophy of Science eJournal (Elsevier: SSRN) 16 (47):1-46.
    The paper discusses Hilbert mathematics, a kind of Pythagorean mathematics, to which the physical world is a particular case. The parameter of the “distance between finiteness and infinity” is crucial. Any nonzero finite value of it features the particular case in the frameworks of Hilbert mathematics where the physical world appears “ex nihilo” by virtue of an only mathematical necessity or quantum information conservation physically. One does not need the mythical Big Bang which serves to concentrate all the violations of (...)
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  5. In defense of Countabilism.David Builes & Jessica M. Wilson - 2022 - Philosophical Studies 179 (7):2199-2236.
    Inspired by Cantor's Theorem (CT), orthodoxy takes infinities to come in different sizes. The orthodox view has had enormous influence in mathematics, philosophy, and science. We will defend the contrary view---Countablism---according to which, necessarily, every infinite collection (set or plurality) is countable. We first argue that the potentialist or modal strategy for treating Russell's Paradox, first proposed by Parsons (2000) and developed by Linnebo (2010, 2013) and Linnebo and Shapiro (2019), should also be applied to CT, in a way that (...)
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  6. Level Theory, Part 3: A Boolean Algebra of Sets Arranged in Well-Ordered Levels.Tim Button - 2022 - Bulletin of Symbolic Logic 28 (1):1-26.
    On a very natural conception of sets, every set has an absolute complement. The ordinary cumulative hierarchy dismisses this idea outright. But we can rectify this, whilst retaining classical logic. Indeed, we can develop a boolean algebra of sets arranged in well-ordered levels. I show this by presenting Boolean Level Theory, which fuses ordinary Level Theory (from Part 1) with ideas due to Thomas Forster, Alonzo Church, and Urs Oswald. BLT neatly implement Conway’s games and surreal numbers; and a natural (...)
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  7. Against Cumulative Type Theory.Tim Button & Robert Trueman - 2022 - Review of Symbolic Logic 15 (4):907-49.
    Standard Type Theory, STT, tells us that b^n(a^m) is well-formed iff n=m+1. However, Linnebo and Rayo have advocated the use of Cumulative Type Theory, CTT, has more relaxed type-restrictions: according to CTT, b^β(a^α) is well-formed iff β > α. In this paper, we set ourselves against CTT. We begin our case by arguing against Linnebo and Rayo’s claim that CTT sheds new philosophical light on set theory. We then argue that, while CTT ’s type-restrictions are unjustifiable, the type-restrictions imposed by (...)
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  8. Mathematics and Metaphilosophy.Justin Clarke-Doane - 2022 - Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
    This book discusses the problem of mathematical knowledge, and its broader philosophical ramifications. It argues that the challenge to explain the (defeasible) justification of our mathematical beliefs (‘the justificatory challenge’), arises insofar as disagreement over axioms bottoms out in disagreement over intuitions. And it argues that the challenge to explain their reliability (‘the reliability challenge’), arises to the extent that we could have easily had different beliefs. The book shows that mathematical facts are not, in general, empirically accessible, contra Quine, (...)
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  9. Why Lewis Would Have Rejected Grounding.Fraser MacBride & Frederique Janssen-Lauret - 2022 - In Helen Beebee & A. R. J. Fisher (eds.), Perspectives on the Philosophy of David K Lewis. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 66-91.
    We argue that Lewis would have rejected recent appeals to the notions of ‘metaphysical dependency’, ‘grounding’ and ‘ontological priority’, because he would have held that they’re not needed and they’re not intelligible. We argue our case by drawing upon Lewis’s views on supervenience, the metaphysics of singletons and the dubiousness of Kripke’s essentialism.
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  10. Level theory, part 2: Axiomatizing the bare idea of a potential hierarchy.Tim Button - 2021 - Bulletin of Symbolic Logic 27 (4):461-484.
    Potentialists think that the concept of set is importantly modal. Using tensed language as an heuristic, the following bar-bones story introduces the idea of a potential hierarchy of sets: 'Always: for any sets that existed, there is a set whose members are exactly those sets; there are no other sets.' Surprisingly, this story already guarantees well-foundedness and persistence. Moreover, if we assume that time is linear, the ensuing modal set theory is almost definitionally equivalent with non-modal set theories; specifically, with (...)
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  11. Level theory, part 1: Axiomatizing the bare idea of a cumulative hierarchy of sets.Tim Button - 2021 - Bulletin of Symbolic Logic 27 (4):436-460.
    The following bare-bones story introduces the idea of a cumulative hierarchy of pure sets: 'Sets are arranged in stages. Every set is found at some stage. At any stage S: for any sets found before S, we find a set whose members are exactly those sets. We find nothing else at S.' Surprisingly, this story already guarantees that the sets are arranged in well-ordered levels, and suffices for quasi-categoricity. I show this by presenting Level Theory, a simplification of set theories (...)
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  12. Against the countable transitive model approach to forcing.Matteo de Ceglie - 2021 - In Martin Blicha & Igor Sedlár (eds.), The Logica Yearbook 2020.
    In this paper, I argue that one of the arguments usually put forward in defence of universism is in tension with current set theoretic practice. According to universism, there is only one set theoretic universe, V, and when applying the method of forcing we are not producing new universes, but only simulating them inside V. Since the usual interpretation of set generic forcing is used to produce a “simulation” of an extension of V from a countable set inside V itself, (...)
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  13. Quine, New Foundations, and the Philosophy of Set Theory by Sean Morris. [REVIEW]Gregory Lavers - 2021 - Journal of the History of Philosophy 59 (2):342-343.
    This book has two main goals: first, to show that Quine's New Foundations set theory is better motivated than often assumed; and second, to defend Quine's philosophy of set theory. It is divided into three parts. The first concerns the history of set theory and argues against readings that see the iterative conception of set being the dominant notion of set from the very beginning. The second part concerns Quine's philosophy of set theory. Part 3 is a contemporary assessment of (...)
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  14. The Relationship of Arithmetic As Two Twin Peano Arithmetic(s) and Set Theory: A New Glance From the Theory of Information.Vasil Penchev - 2020 - Metaphilosophy eJournal (Elseviers: SSRN) 12 (10):1-33.
    The paper introduces and utilizes a few new concepts: “nonstandard Peano arithmetic”, “complementary Peano arithmetic”, “Hilbert arithmetic”. They identify the foundations of both mathematics and physics demonstrating the equivalence of the newly introduced Hilbert arithmetic and the separable complex Hilbert space of quantum mechanics in turn underlying physics and all the world. That new both mathematical and physical ground can be recognized as information complemented and generalized by quantum information. A few fundamental mathematical problems of the present such as Fermat’s (...)
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  15. Review of: Hilary Putnam on Logic and Mathematics, by Geoffrey Hellman and Roy T. Cook (eds.). [REVIEW]Tim Button - 2019 - Mind 129 (516):1327-1337.
    Putnam’s most famous contribution to mathematical logic was his role in investigating Hilbert’s Tenth Problem; Putnam is the ‘P’ in the MRDP Theorem. This volume, though, focusses mostly on Putnam’s work on the philosophy of logic and mathematics. It is a somewhat bumpy ride. Of the twelve papers, two scarcely mention Putnam. Three others focus primarily on Putnam’s ‘Mathematics without foundations’ (1967), but with no interplay between them. The remaining seven papers apparently tackle unrelated themes. Some of this disjointedness would (...)
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  16. On the Varieties of Abstract Objects.James E. Davies - 2019 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 97 (4):809-823.
    I reconcile the spatiotemporal location of repeatable artworks and impure sets with the non-location of natural numbers despite all three being varieties of abstract objects. This is possible because, while the identity conditions for all three can be given by abstraction principles, in the former two cases spatiotemporal location is a congruence for the equivalence relation featuring in the relevant principle, whereas in the latter it is not. I then generalize this to other ‘physical’ properties like shape, mass, and causal (...)
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  17. Considerações de Brouwer sobre espaço e infinitude: O idealismo de Brouwer Diante do Problema Apresentado por Dummett Quanto à Possibilidade Teórica de uma Infinitude Espacial.Paulo Júnio de Oliveira - 2019 - Kinesis 11:94-108.
    Resumo Neste artigo, será discutida a noção de “infinitude cardinal” – a qual seria predicada de um “conjunto” – e a noção de “infinitude ordinal” – a qual seria predicada de um “processo”. A partir dessa distinção conceitual, será abordado o principal problema desse artigo, i.e., o problema da possibilidade teórica de uma infinitude de estrelas tratado por Dummett em sua obra Elements of Intuitionism. O filósofo inglês sugere que, mesmo diante dessa possibilidade teórica, deveria ser possível predicar apenas infinitude (...)
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  18. Universality, Invariance, and the Foundations of Computational Complexity in the light of the Quantum Computer.Michael Cuffaro - 2018 - In Sven Hansson (ed.), Technology and Mathematics: Philosophical and Historical Investigations. Springer. pp. 253-282.
    Computational complexity theory is a branch of computer science dedicated to classifying computational problems in terms of their difficulty. While computability theory tells us what we can compute in principle, complexity theory informs us regarding our practical limits. In this chapter I argue that the science of \emph{quantum computing} illuminates complexity theory by emphasising that its fundamental concepts are not model-independent, but that this does not, as some suggest, force us to radically revise the foundations of the theory. For model-independence (...)
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  19. The Argument from Collections.Christopher Menzel - 2018 - In J. Walls & T. Dougherty (eds.), Two Dozen (or so) Arguments for God: The Plantinga Project. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 29-58.
    Very broadly, an argument from collections is an argument that purports to show that our beliefs about sets imply — in some sense — the existence of God. Plantinga (2007) first sketched such an argument in “Two Dozen” and filled it out somewhat in his 2011 monograph Where the Conflict Really Lies: Religion, Science, and Naturalism. In this paper I reconstruct what strikes me as the most plausible version of Plantinga’s argument. While it is a good argument in at least (...)
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  20. What we talk about when we talk about numbers.Richard Pettigrew - 2018 - Annals of Pure and Applied Logic 169 (12):1437-1456.
    In this paper, I describe and motivate a new species of mathematical structuralism, which I call Instrumental Nominalism about Set-Theoretic Structuralism. As the name suggests, this approach takes standard Set-Theoretic Structuralism of the sort championed by Bourbaki and removes its ontological commitments by taking an instrumental nominalist approach to that ontology of the sort described by Joseph Melia and Gideon Rosen. I argue that this avoids all of the problems that plague other versions of structuralism.
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  21. Quantifier Variance and Indefinite Extensibility.Jared Warren - 2017 - Philosophical Review 126 (1):81-122.
    This essay clarifies quantifier variance and uses it to provide a theory of indefinite extensibility that I call the variance theory of indefinite extensibility. The indefinite extensibility response to the set-theoretic paradoxes sees each argument for paradox as a demonstration that we have come to a different and more expansive understanding of ‘all sets’. But indefinite extensibility is philosophically puzzling: extant accounts are either metasemantically suspect in requiring mysterious mechanisms of domain expansion, or metaphysically suspect in requiring nonstandard assumptions about (...)
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  22. Approaching Infinity.Michael Huemer - 2016 - New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
    Approaching Infinity addresses seventeen paradoxes of the infinite, most of which have no generally accepted solutions. The book addresses these paradoxes using a new theory of infinity, which entails that an infinite series is uncompletable when it requires something to possess an infinite intensive magnitude. Along the way, the author addresses the nature of numbers, sets, geometric points, and related matters. The book addresses the need for a theory of infinity, and reviews both old and new theories of infinity. It (...)
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  23. The Reception of Russell’s Paradox in Early Phenomenology and the School of Brentano: The Case of Husserl’s Manuscript A I 35α.Carlo Ierna - 2016 - In Guillermo E. Rosado Haddock (ed.), Husserl and Analytic Philosophy. De Gruyter. pp. 119-142.
    Edmund Husserl’s engagement with Bertrand Russell’s paradox stands in a continuum of reciprocal reception and discussions about impossible objects in the School of Brentano. Against this broader context, we will focus on Husserl’s discussion of Russell’s paradox in his manuscript A I 35α from 1912. This highly interesting and revealing manuscript has unfortunately remained unpublished, which probably explains the scant attention it has received. I will examine Husserl’s approach in A I 35α by relating it to earlier discussions of relevant (...)
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  24. Nine Kinds of Number.John-Michael Kuczynski - 2016 - JOHN-MICHAEL KUCZYNSKI.
    There are nine kinds of number: cardinal (measure of class size), ordinal (corresponds to position), generalized ordinal (position in multidimensional discrete manifold), signed (relation between cardinals), rational (different kind of relation between cardinals), real (limit), complex (pair of reals), transfinite (size of reflexive class), and dimension (measure of complexity.
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  25. Husserl’s Manuscript A I 35.Dieter Lohmar & Carlo Ierna - 2016 - In Guillermo E. Rosado Haddock (ed.), Husserl and Analytic Philosophy. De Gruyter. pp. 289-320.
    The following pages contain a partial edition of Husserl’s manuscript A I 35, pages 1a-28b. The first few pages are dated on May 1927 and are included mostly for completeness’ sake. The bulk of the manuscript convolute, however, is from 1912. Four pages of the convolute, 31a-34b, have been published as Beilage XII (210, 2–216, 2) in Hua XXXII. The manuscript was excluded from the text selection of Husserliana XXI3 based on its much later date of composition. A I 35/24a (...)
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  26. Multiverse Conceptions in Set Theory.Carolin Antos, Sy-David Friedman, Radek Honzik & Claudio Ternullo - 2015 - Synthese 192 (8):2463-2488.
    We review different conceptions of the set-theoretic multiverse and evaluate their features and strengths. In Sect. 1, we set the stage by briefly discussing the opposition between the ‘universe view’ and the ‘multiverse view’. Furthermore, we propose to classify multiverse conceptions in terms of their adherence to some form of mathematical realism. In Sect. 2, we use this classification to review four major conceptions. Finally, in Sect. 3, we focus on the distinction between actualism and potentialism with regard to the (...)
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  27. Structuralism and Its Ontology.Marc Gasser - 2015 - Ergo: An Open Access Journal of Philosophy 2:1-26.
    A prominent version of mathematical structuralism holds that mathematical objects are at bottom nothing but "positions in structures," purely relational entities without any sort of nature independent of the structure to which they belong. Such an ontology is often presented as a response to Benacerraf's "multiple reductions" problem, or motivated on hermeneutic grounds, as a faithful representation of the discourse and practice of mathematics. In this paper I argue that there are serious difficulties with this kind of view: its proponents (...)
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  28. When Do Some Things Form a Set?Simon Hewitt - 2015 - Philosophia Mathematica 23 (3):311-337.
    This paper raises the question under what circumstances a plurality forms a set, parallel to the Special Composition Question for mereology. The range of answers that have been proposed in the literature are surveyed and criticised. I argue that there is good reason to reject both the view that pluralities never form sets and the view that pluralities always form sets. Instead, we need to affirm restricted set formation. Casting doubt on the availability of any informative principle which will settle (...)
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  29. Carnap, Quine, Quantification and Ontology.Gregory Lavers - 2015 - In Alessandro Torza (ed.), Quantifiers, Quantifiers, and Quantifiers: Themes in Logic, Metaphysics, and Language. Springer.
    Abstract At the time of The Logical Syntax of Language (Syntax), Quine was, in his own words, a disciple of Carnap’s who read this work page by page as it issued from Ina Carnap’s typewriter. The present paper will show that there were serious problems with how Syntax dealt with ontological claims. These problems were especially pronounced when Carnap attempted to deal with higher order quantification. Carnap, at the time, viewed all talk of reference as being part of the misleading (...)
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  30. Set Theory, Type Theory, and Absolute Generality.Salvatore Florio & Stewart Shapiro - 2014 - Mind 123 (489):157-174.
    In light of the close connection between the ontological hierarchy of set theory and the ideological hierarchy of type theory, Øystein Linnebo and Agustín Rayo have recently offered an argument in favour of the view that the set-theoretic universe is open-ended. In this paper, we argue that, since the connection between the two hierarchies is indeed tight, any philosophical conclusions cut both ways. One should either hold that both the ontological hierarchy and the ideological hierarchy are open-ended, or that neither (...)
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  31. Wide Sets, ZFCU, and the Iterative Conception.Christopher Menzel - 2014 - Journal of Philosophy 111 (2):57-83.
    The iterative conception of set is typically considered to provide the intuitive underpinnings for ZFCU (ZFC+Urelements). It is an easy theorem of ZFCU that all sets have a definite cardinality. But the iterative conception seems to be entirely consistent with the existence of “wide” sets, sets (of, in particular, urelements) that are larger than any cardinal. This paper diagnoses the source of the apparent disconnect here and proposes modifications of the Replacement and Powerset axioms so as to allow for the (...)
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  32. An Introduction to Ontology.Nikk Effingham - 2013 - Cambridge: Polity.
    In this engaging and wide-ranging new book, Nikk Effingham provides an introduction to contemporary ontology - the study of what exists - and its importance for philosophy today. He covers the key topics in the field, from the ontology of holes, numbers and possible worlds, to space, time and the ontology of material objects - for instance, whether there are composite objects such as tables, chairs or even you and me. While starting from the basics, every chapter is up-to-date with (...)
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  33. WHAT CAN A CATEGORICITY THEOREM TELL US?Toby Meadows - 2013 - Review of Symbolic Logic (3):524-544.
    f The purpose of this paper is to investigate categoricity arguments conducted in second order logic and the philosophical conclusions that can be drawn from them. We provide a way of seeing this result, so to speak, through a first order lens divested of its second order garb. Our purpose is to draw into sharper relief exactly what is involved in this kind of categoricity proof and to highlight the fact that we should be reserved before drawing powerful philosophical conclusions (...)
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  34. To be or to be not, that is the dilemma.Juan José Luetich - 2012 - Identification Transactions of The Luventicus Academy (ISSN 1666-7581) 1 (1):4.
    A set is precisely defined. A given element either belongs or not to a set. However, since all of the elements being considered belong to the universe, if the element does not belong to the set, it belongs to its complement, that is, what remains after all of the elements from the set are removed from the universe.
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  35. Wittgenstein And Labyrinth Of ‘Actual Infinity’: The Critique Of Transfinite Set Theory.Valérie Lynn Therrien - 2012 - Ithaque 10:43-65.
    In order to explain Wittgenstein’s account of the reality of completed infinity in mathematics, a brief overview of Cantor’s initial injection of the idea into set- theory, its trajectory and the philosophic implications he attributed to it will be presented. Subsequently, we will first expound Wittgenstein’s grammatical critique of the use of the term ‘infinity’ in common parlance and its conversion into a notion of an actually existing infinite ‘set’. Secondly, we will delve into Wittgenstein’s technical critique of the concept (...)
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  36. Category theory as an autonomous foundation.Øystein Linnebo & Richard Pettigrew - 2011 - Philosophia Mathematica 19 (3):227-254.
    Does category theory provide a foundation for mathematics that is autonomous with respect to the orthodox foundation in a set theory such as ZFC? We distinguish three types of autonomy: logical, conceptual, and justificatory. Focusing on a categorical theory of sets, we argue that a strong case can be made for its logical and conceptual autonomy. Its justificatory autonomy turns on whether the objects of a foundation for mathematics should be specified only up to isomorphism, as is customary in other (...)
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  37. Universality in Set Theories: A Study in Formal Ontology.Manuel Bremer - 2010 - Frankfurt, Germany: Ontos.
  38. The Reality of Mathematics and the Case of Set Theory.Daniel Isaacson - 2010 - In Zsolt Novak & Andras Simonyi (eds.), Truth, Reference and Realism. Budapest: Central European University Press. pp. 1-76.
  39. Neologicist Nominalism.Rafal Urbaniak - 2010 - Studia Logica 96 (2):149-173.
    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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  40. Cantor on Infinity in Nature, Number, and the Divine Mind.Anne Newstead - 2009 - American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 83 (4):533-553.
    The mathematician Georg Cantor strongly believed in the existence of actually infinite numbers and sets. Cantor’s “actualism” went against the Aristotelian tradition in metaphysics and mathematics. Under the pressures to defend his theory, his metaphysics changed from Spinozistic monism to Leibnizian voluntarist dualism. The factor motivating this change was two-fold: the desire to avoid antinomies associated with the notion of a universal collection and the desire to avoid the heresy of necessitarian pantheism. We document the changes in Cantor’s thought with (...)
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  41. Biometaphysics.Barry Smith - 2009 - In Robin Le Poidevin, Peter Simons, Andrew McGonigal & Ross Cameron (eds.), The Routledge Companion to Metaphysics. Routledge. pp. 537-544.
    While Darwin is commonly supposed to have demonstrated the inapplicability of the Aristotelian ontology of species to biological science, recent developments, especially in the wake of the Human Genome Project, have given rise to a new golden age of classification in which ontological ideas -- as for example in the Gene Ontology, the Cell Ontology, the Protein Ontology, and so forth -- are once again playing an important role. In regard to species, on the other hand, matters are more complex. (...)
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  42. Intertwining metaphysics and mathematics: The development of Georg Cantor's set theory 1871-1887.Anne Newstead - 2008 - Review of Contemporary Philosophy 7:35-55.
  43. Motivating reductionism about sets.Alexander Paseau - 2008 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 86 (2):295 – 307.
    The paper raises some difficulties for the typical motivations behind set reductionism, the view that sets are reducible to entities identified independently of set theory.
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  44. Lesniewski's Systems of Logic and Mereology; History and Re-Evaluation.Rafal Urbaniak - 2008 - Dissertation, University of Calgary
  45. Redukcje ontologiczne w matematyce. Część I.Krzysztof Wójtowicz - 2008 - Filozofia Nauki 3.
    The article is the first part of a series of papers devoted to the problem of ontological reductions in mathematics – in particular, of choosing the basic category of mathematical entities. The received view is that such a category is provided by set theory, which serves as the ontological framework for the whole of mathematics (as all mathematical entities can be represented as sets). However, from the point of view of "naive mathematical realism" we should rather think of the mathematical (...)
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  46. Some Recent Appeals to Mathematical Experience.Michael J. Shaffer - 2006 - Principia 10 (2):143-170.
    ome recent work by philosophers of mathematics has been aimed at showing that our knowledge of the existence of at least some mathematical objects and/or sets can be epistemically grounded by appealing to perceptual experience. The sensory capacity that they refer to in doing so is the ability to perceive numbers, mathematical properties and/or sets. The chief defense of this view as it applies to the perception of sets is found in Penelope Maddy’s Realism in Mathematics, but a number of (...)
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  47. Conjoining Mathematical Empiricism with Mathematical Realism: Maddy’s Account of Set Perception Revisited.Alex Levine - 2005 - Synthese 145 (3):425-448.
    Penelope Maddy's original solution to the dilemma posed by Benacerraf in his 'Mathematical Truth' was to reconcile mathematical empiricism with mathematical realism by arguing that we can perceive realistically construed sets. Though her hypothesis has attracted considerable critical attention, much of it, in my view, misses the point. In this paper I vigorously defend Maddy's account against published criticisms, not because I think it is true, but because these criticisms have functioned to obscure a more fundamental issue that is well (...)
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  48. Why Numbers Are Sets.Eric Steinhart - 2002 - Synthese 133 (3):343-361.
    I follow standard mathematical practice and theory to argue that the natural numbers are the finite von Neumann ordinals. I present the reasons standardly given for identifying the natural numbers with the finite von Neumann's (e.g., recursiveness; well-ordering principles; continuity at transfinite limits; minimality; and identification of n with the set of all numbers less than n). I give a detailed mathematical demonstration that 0 is { } and for every natural number n, n is the set of all natural (...)
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  49. Aristotle and modern mathematical theories of the continuum.Anne Newstead - 2001 - In Demetra Sfendoni-Mentzou & James Brown (eds.), Aristotle and Contemporary Philosophy of Science. Peter Lang.
    This paper is on Aristotle's conception of the continuum. It is argued that although Aristotle did not have the modern conception of real numbers, his account of the continuum does mirror the topology of the real number continuum in modern mathematics especially as seen in the work of Georg Cantor. Some differences are noted, particularly as regards Aristotle's conception of number and the modern conception of real numbers. The issue of whether Aristotle had the notion of open versus closed intervals (...)
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  50. Must we believe in set theory?George Boolos - 1998 - In Richard Jeffrey (ed.), Logic, Logic, and Logic. Harvard University Press. pp. 120-132.
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