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Bad company generalized

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Abstract

The paper is concerned with the bad company problem as an instance of a more general difficulty in the philosophy of mathematics. The paper focuses on the prospects of stability as a necessary condition on acceptability. However, the conclusion of the paper is largely negative. As a solution to the bad company problem, stability would undermine the prospects of a neo-Fregean foundation for set theory, and, as a solution to the more general difficulty, it would impose an unreasonable constraint on mathematical practice.

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Correspondence to Gabriel Uzquiano.

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Uzquiano, G. Bad company generalized. Synthese 170, 331–347 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-007-9266-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-007-9266-6

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