more from Stewart Shapiro

Single Idea 8750

[catalogued under 6. Mathematics / C. Sources of Mathematics / 7. Formalism]

Full Idea

Game Formalism likens mathematics to chess, where the 'content' of mathematics is exhausted by the rules of operating with its language. ...This, however, leaves the problem of why the mathematical games are so useful to the sciences.

Gist of Idea

Game Formalism is just a matter of rules, like chess - but then why is it useful in science?

Source

Stewart Shapiro (Thinking About Mathematics [2000], 6.1.2)

Book Reference

Shapiro,Stewart: 'Thinking About Mathematics' [OUP 2000], p.144


A Reaction

This thought pushes us towards structuralism. It could still be a game, but one we learned from observing nature, which plays its own games. Chess is, after all, modelled on warfare.