Full Idea
We may not be able to settle whether some general form of empiricism is correct independently of natural numbers. It might be precisely our grasp of the abstract sortal, natural number, which shows the hypothesis of empiricism to be wrong.
Gist of Idea
We can't use empiricism to dismiss numbers, if numbers are our main evidence against empiricism
Source
Crispin Wright (Frege's Concept of Numbers as Objects [1983], 1.i)
Book Reference
Wright,Crispin: 'Frege's Conception of Numbers' [Scots Philosophical Monographs 1983], p.4
A Reaction
A nice turning of the tables. In the end only coherence decides these things. You may accept numbers and reject empiricism, and then find you have opened the floodgates for abstracta. Excessive floodgates, or blockages of healthy streams?