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Ideas for 'works', 'Intro to 'The Reason's Proper Study'' and 'Dispositional Essentialism and the Laws of Nature'

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3 ideas

6. Mathematics / B. Foundations for Mathematics / 4. Axioms for Number / g. Incompleteness of Arithmetic
The incompletability of formal arithmetic reveals that logic also cannot be completely characterized [Hale/Wright]
     Full Idea: The incompletability of formal arithmetic reveals, not arithmetical truths which are not truths of logic, but that logical truth likewise defies complete deductive characterization. ...Gödel's result has no specific bearing on the logicist project.
     From: B Hale / C Wright (Intro to 'The Reason's Proper Study' [2001], §2 n5)
     A reaction: This is the key defence against the claim that Gödel's First Theorem demolished logicism.
6. Mathematics / B. Foundations for Mathematics / 7. Mathematical Structuralism / e. Structuralism critique
If structures are relative, this undermines truth-value and objectivity [Hale/Wright]
     Full Idea: The relativization of ontology to theory in structuralism can't avoid carrying with it a relativization of truth-value, which would compromise the objectivity which structuralists wish to claim for mathematics.
     From: B Hale / C Wright (Intro to 'The Reason's Proper Study' [2001], 3.2 n26)
     A reaction: This is the attraction of structures which grow out of the physical world, where truth-value is presumably not in dispute.
The structural view of numbers doesn't fit their usage outside arithmetical contexts [Hale/Wright]
     Full Idea: It is not clear how the view that natural numbers are purely intra-structural 'objects' can be squared with the widespread use of numerals outside purely arithmetical contexts.
     From: B Hale / C Wright (Intro to 'The Reason's Proper Study' [2001], 3.2 n26)
     A reaction: I don't understand this objection. If they refer to quantity, they are implicitly cardinal. If they name things in a sequence they are implicitly ordinal. All users of numbers have a grasp of the basic structure.