Combining Texts

Ideas for 'On What Grounds What', 'The Value of Knowledge and the Pursuit of Understanding' and 'Intro to Positive Philosophy'

unexpand these ideas     |    start again     |     choose another area for these texts

display all the ideas for this combination of texts


1 idea

6. Mathematics / C. Sources of Mathematics / 1. Mathematical Platonism / a. For mathematical platonism
If 'there are red roses' implies 'there are roses', then 'there are prime numbers' implies 'there are numbers' [Schaffer,J]
     Full Idea: We can automatically infer 'there are roses' from 'there are red roses' (with no shift in the meaning of 'roses'). Likewise one can automatically infer 'there are numbers' from 'there are prime numbers'.
     From: Jonathan Schaffer (On What Grounds What [2009], 2.1)
     A reaction: He similarly observes that the atheist's 'God is a fictional character' implies 'there are fictional characters'. Schaffer is not committing to a strong platonism with his claim - merely that the existence of numbers is hardly worth disputing.