33 ideas
22519 | Philosophers are revealed by their fears [Billington] |
17925 | Showing a disproof is impossible is not a proof, so don't eliminate double negation [Colyvan] |
17926 | Rejecting double negation elimination undermines reductio proofs [Colyvan] |
17924 | Excluded middle says P or not-P; bivalence says P is either true or false [Colyvan] |
17929 | Löwenheim proved his result for a first-order sentence, and Skolem generalised it [Colyvan] |
17930 | Axioms are 'categorical' if all of their models are isomorphic [Colyvan] |
17453 | The meaning of a number isn't just the numerals leading up to it [Heck] |
17928 | Ordinal numbers represent order relations [Colyvan] |
17457 | A basic grasp of cardinal numbers needs an understanding of equinumerosity [Heck] |
17448 | In counting, numerals are used, not mentioned (as objects that have to correlated) [Heck] |
17456 | Counting is the assignment of successively larger cardinal numbers to collections [Heck] |
17455 | Is counting basically mindless, and independent of the cardinality involved? [Heck] |
17450 | Understanding 'just as many' needn't involve grasping one-one correspondence [Heck] |
17451 | We can know 'just as many' without the concepts of equinumerosity or numbers [Heck] |
17923 | Intuitionists only accept a few safe infinities [Colyvan] |
17941 | Infinitesimals were sometimes zero, and sometimes close to zero [Colyvan] |
17922 | Reducing real numbers to rationals suggested arithmetic as the foundation of maths [Colyvan] |
17459 | Frege's Theorem explains why the numbers satisfy the Peano axioms [Heck] |
17936 | Transfinite induction moves from all cases, up to the limit ordinal [Colyvan] |
17940 | Most mathematical proofs are using set theory, but without saying so [Colyvan] |
17931 | Structuralism say only 'up to isomorphism' matters because that is all there is to it [Colyvan] |
17932 | If 'in re' structures relies on the world, does the world contain rich enough structures? [Colyvan] |
17454 | Children can use numbers, without a concept of them as countable objects [Heck] |
17458 | Equinumerosity is not the same concept as one-one correspondence [Heck] |
17449 | We can understand cardinality without the idea of one-one correspondence [Heck] |
17943 | Probability supports Bayesianism better as degrees of belief than as ratios of frequencies [Colyvan] |
17939 | Mathematics can reveal structural similarities in diverse systems [Colyvan] |
17938 | Mathematics can show why some surprising events have to occur [Colyvan] |
17934 | Proof by cases (by 'exhaustion') is said to be unexplanatory [Colyvan] |
17933 | Reductio proofs do not seem to be very explanatory [Colyvan] |
17935 | If inductive proofs hold because of the structure of natural numbers, they may explain theorems [Colyvan] |
17942 | Can a proof that no one understands (of the four-colour theorem) really be a proof? [Colyvan] |
17937 | Mathematical generalisation is by extending a system, or by abstracting away from it [Colyvan] |