Magicicada, Mathematical Explanation and Mathematical Realism

Erkenntnis 74 (1):101-114 (2011)
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Abstract

Baker claims to provide an example of mathematical explanation of an empirical phenomenon which leads to ontological commitment to mathematical objects. This is meant to show that the positing of mathematical entities is necessary for satisfactory scientific explanations and thus that the application of mathematics to science can be used, at least in some cases, to support mathematical realism. In this paper I show that the example of explanation Baker considers can actually be given without postulating mathematical objects and thus cannot be used by the mathematical realist. I also show that, despite this, mathematics keeps playing an important methodological role in the explanation and does not reduce to a merely computational or descriptive framework

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Davide Rizza
University of East Anglia

References found in this work

Science Without Numbers: A Defence of Nominalism.Hartry H. Field - 1980 - Princeton, NJ, USA: Princeton University Press.
Realism, Mathematics & Modality.Hartry H. Field - 1989 - New York, NY, USA: Blackwell.
Theories and things.W. V. Quine (ed.) - 1981 - Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
The Indispensability of Mathematics.Mark Colyvan - 2001 - Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.
Mathematics as a science of patterns.Michael David Resnik - 1997 - New York ;: Oxford University Press.

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