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Ideas for 'works', 'Philosophical Analysis' and 'Ontology and Mathematical Truth'

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6. Mathematics / A. Nature of Mathematics / 3. Nature of Numbers / d. Natural numbers
There couldn't just be one number, such as 17 [Jubien]
     Full Idea: It makes no sense to suppose there might be just one natural number, say seventeen.
     From: Michael Jubien (Ontology and Mathematical Truth [1977], p.113)
     A reaction: Hm. Not convinced. If numbers are essentially patterns, we might only have the number 'twelve', because we had built our religion around anything which exhibited that form (in any of its various arrangements). Nice point, though.