28 ideas
8729 | Intuitionists deny excluded middle, because it is committed to transcendent truth or objects [Shapiro] |
8763 | The number 3 is presumably identical as a natural, an integer, a rational, a real, and complex [Shapiro] |
18249 | Cauchy gave a formal definition of a converging sequence. [Shapiro] |
8764 | Categories are the best foundation for mathematics [Shapiro] |
8762 | Two definitions of 3 in terms of sets disagree over whether 1 is a member of 3 [Shapiro] |
8760 | Numbers do not exist independently; the essence of a number is its relations to other numbers [Shapiro] |
8761 | A 'system' is related objects; a 'pattern' or 'structure' abstracts the pure relations from them [Shapiro] |
8744 | Logicism seems to be a non-starter if (as is widely held) logic has no ontology of its own [Shapiro] |
8749 | Term Formalism says mathematics is just about symbols - but real numbers have no names [Shapiro] |
8750 | Game Formalism is just a matter of rules, like chess - but then why is it useful in science? [Shapiro] |
8752 | Deductivism says mathematics is logical consequences of uninterpreted axioms [Shapiro] |
8753 | Critics resent the way intuitionism cripples mathematics, but it allows new important distinctions [Shapiro] |
8731 | Conceptualist are just realists or idealist or nominalists, depending on their view of concepts [Shapiro] |
8730 | 'Impredicative' definitions refer to the thing being described [Shapiro] |
13076 | Scholastics treat relations as two separate predicates of the relata [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne] |
13102 | If you individuate things by their origin, you still have to individuate the origins themselves [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne] |
13103 | Numerical difference is a symmetrical notion, unlike proper individuation [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne] |
13104 | Haecceity as property, or as colourless thisness, or as singleton set [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne] |
13100 | Maybe 'substance' is more of a mass-noun than a count-noun [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne] |
13068 | We can ask for the nature of substance, about type of substance, and about individual substances [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne] |
13069 | The general assumption is that substances cannot possibly be non-substances [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne] |
13083 | The essence is the necessary properties, and the concept includes what is contingent [Leibniz] |
13072 | Modern essences are sets of essential predicate-functions [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne] |
17080 | Modern essentialists express essence as functions from worlds to extensions for predicates [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne] |
13101 | Necessity-of-origin won't distinguish ex nihilo creations, or things sharing an origin [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne] |
13081 | Even extreme modal realists might allow transworld identity for abstract objects [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne] |
8725 | Rationalism tries to apply mathematical methodology to all of knowledge [Shapiro] |
13071 | We can go beyond mere causal explanations if we believe in an 'order of being' [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne] |