more on this theme | more from this thinker
Full Idea
I argue for an internalist conception of arithmetic. Arithmetic is not about a domain of entities, not even quantified entities. Quantifiers over natural numbers occur in their inferential-role reading in which they merely generalize over the instances.
Clarification
See Idea 10007 for the two roles of quantifiers
Gist of Idea
Arithmetic is not about a domain of entities, as the quantifiers are purely inferential
Source
Thomas Hofweber (Number Determiners, Numbers, Arithmetic [2005], §6.3)
Book Ref
-: 'Philosophical Review 114' [Phil Review 2005], p.219
A Reaction
Hofweber offers the hope that modern semantics can disentangle the confusions in platonist arithmetic. Very interesting. The fear is that after digging into the semantics for twenty years, you find the same old problems re-emerging at a lower level.
Related Idea
Idea 10007 Quantifiers for domains and for inference come apart if there are no entities [Hofweber]
9998 | What is the relation of number words as singular-terms, adjectives/determiners, and symbols? [Hofweber] |
10000 | We might eliminate adjectival numbers by analysing them into blocks of quantifiers [Hofweber] |
10001 | An adjective contributes semantically to a noun phrase [Hofweber] |
10002 | '2 + 2 = 4' can be read as either singular or plural [Hofweber] |
10003 | Why is arithmetic hard to learn, but then becomes easy? [Hofweber] |
10004 | Our minds are at their best when reasoning about objects [Hofweber] |
10005 | Arithmetic doesn’t simply depend on objects, since it is true of fictional objects [Hofweber] |
10006 | First-order logic captures the inferential relations of numbers, but not the semantics [Hofweber] |
10008 | Arithmetic is not about a domain of entities, as the quantifiers are purely inferential [Hofweber] |
10007 | Quantifiers for domains and for inference come apart if there are no entities [Hofweber] |