Abstract
In the past century the received view of definition in mathematics has been the stipulative conception, according to which a definition merely stipulates the meaning of a term in other terms which are supposed to be already well known. The stipulative conception has been so absolutely dominant and accepted as unproblematic that the nature of definition has not been much discussed, yet it is inadequate. This paper examines its shortcomings and proposes an alternative, the heuristic conception.
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Acknowledgements
I am grateful to Otávio Bueno, Mirella Capozzi, Donald Gillies, Reuben Hersh, Nathalie Sinclair, Fabio Sterpetti, Robert Thomas, and two anonymous reviewers, for comments and suggestions on earlier drafts of this paper.
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Cellucci, C. Definition in mathematics. Euro Jnl Phil Sci 8, 605–629 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13194-018-0203-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13194-018-0203-y