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Full Idea
The pure mathematician deals exclusively with hypotheses. Whether or not there is any corresponding real thing, he does not care.
Gist of Idea
Pure mathematics deals only with hypotheses, of which the reality does not matter
Source
Charles Sanders Peirce (works [1892], CP5.567), quoted by Albert Atkin - Peirce 3 'separation'
Book Ref
Atkin,Albert: 'Peirce' [Routledge 2016], p.104
A Reaction
[Dated 1902] Maybe we should identify a huge branch of human learning as Hyptheticals. Professor of Hypotheticals at Cambridge University. The trouble is it would have to include computer games. So why does maths matter more than games?
| 21489 | Super-ordinate disciplines give laws or principles; subordinate disciplines give concrete cases [Peirce, by Atkin] |
| 19095 | Pragmatic 'truth' is a term to cover the many varied aims of enquiry [Peirce, by Misak] |
| 19097 | Peirce did not think a belief was true if it was useful [Peirce, by Misak] |
| 21494 | If truth is the end of enquiry, what if it never ends, or ends prematurely? [Atkin on Peirce] |
| 19102 | Bivalence is a regulative assumption of enquiry - not a law of logic [Peirce, by Misak] |
| 10352 | The real is the idea in which the community ultimately settles down [Peirce] |
| 21491 | Peirce's later realism about possibilities and generalities went beyond logical positivism [Peirce, by Atkin] |
| 16376 | The possible can only be general, and the force of actuality is needed to produce a particular [Peirce] |
| 13498 | Peirce and others began the mapping out of relations [Peirce, by Hart,WD] |
| 19107 | Inquiry is not standing on bedrock facts, but standing in hope on a shifting bog [Peirce] |
| 21493 | Pure mathematics deals only with hypotheses, of which the reality does not matter [Peirce] |