more from Bertrand Russell

Single Idea 18128

[catalogued under 6. Mathematics / C. Sources of Mathematics / 10. Constructivism / d. Predicativism]

Full Idea

It is a conceptualist approach that Russell is relying on. ...The view is that some abstract objects ...exist only because they are definable. It is the definition that would (if permitted) somehow bring them into existence.

Gist of Idea

Russell is a conceptualist here, saying some abstracta only exist because definitions create them

Source

report of Bertrand Russell (Mathematical logic and theory of types [1908]) by David Bostock - Philosophy of Mathematics 8.1

Book Reference

Bostock,David: 'Philosophy of Mathematics: An Introduction' [Wiley-Blackwell 2009], p.233


A Reaction

I'm suddenly thinking that predicativism is rather interesting. Being of an anti-platonist persuasion about abstract 'objects', I take some story about how we generate them to be needed. Psychological abstraction seems right, but a bit vague.