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Full Idea
The abstractness of the old fashioned real numbers has been replaced by generality in the modern theory of complete ordered fields.
Gist of Idea
Real numbers as abstracted objects are now treated as complete ordered fields
Source
John Mayberry (What Required for Foundation for Maths? [1994], p.408-2)
Book Ref
'Philosophy of Mathematics: anthology', ed/tr. Jacquette,Dale [Blackwell 2002], p.408
A Reaction
In philosophy, I'm increasingly thinking that we should talk much more of 'generality', and a great deal less about 'universals'. (By which I don't mean that redness is just the set of red things).