more from this thinker | more from this text
Full Idea
The master science can be thought of as the theory of sets with the entire range of physical objects as ur-elements.
Gist of Idea
The master science is physical objects divided into sets
Source
Penelope Maddy (Sets and Numbers [1981], II)
Book Ref
'Philosophy of Mathematics: anthology', ed/tr. Jacquette,Dale [Blackwell 2002], p.347
A Reaction
This sounds like Quine's view, since we have to add sets to our naturalistic ontology of objects. It seems to involve unrestricted mereology to create normal objects.
| 8625 | What physical facts could underlie 0 or 1, or very large numbers? [Frege on Mill] |
| 8469 | Russell's proposal was that only meaningful predicates have sets as their extensions [Russell, by Orenstein] |
| 21693 | Russell's antinomy challenged the idea that any condition can produce a set [Quine] |
| 9406 | A class is natural when everybody can spot further members of it [Quinton] |
| 9984 | We can have a series with identical members [Tait] |
| 17837 | Zermelo allows ur-elements, to enable the widespread application of set-theory [Hallett,M] |
| 8755 | Maddy replaces pure sets with just objects and perceived sets of objects [Maddy, by Shapiro] |
| 17824 | The master science is physical objects divided into sets [Maddy] |
| 9571 | ZFU refers to the physical world, when it talks of 'urelements' [Chihara] |
| 9642 | A flock of birds is not a set, because a set cannot go anywhere [Brown,JR] |