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All the ideas for 'Thinking About Mathematics', 'works' and 'works'

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25 ideas

4. Formal Logic / G. Formal Mereology / 1. Mereology
Abelard's mereology involves privileged and natural divisions, and principal parts [Abelard, by King,P]
5. Theory of Logic / D. Assumptions for Logic / 2. Excluded Middle
Intuitionists deny excluded middle, because it is committed to transcendent truth or objects [Shapiro]
6. Mathematics / A. Nature of Mathematics / 3. Nature of Numbers / b. Types of number
The number 3 is presumably identical as a natural, an integer, a rational, a real, and complex [Shapiro]
6. Mathematics / A. Nature of Mathematics / 3. Nature of Numbers / h. Reals from Cauchy
Cauchy gave a formal definition of a converging sequence. [Shapiro]
6. Mathematics / B. Foundations for Mathematics / 1. Foundations for Mathematics
Categories are the best foundation for mathematics [Shapiro]
6. Mathematics / B. Foundations for Mathematics / 5. Definitions of Number / f. Zermelo numbers
Two definitions of 3 in terms of sets disagree over whether 1 is a member of 3 [Shapiro]
6. Mathematics / B. Foundations for Mathematics / 7. Mathematical Structuralism / a. Structuralism
Numbers do not exist independently; the essence of a number is its relations to other numbers [Shapiro]
A 'system' is related objects; a 'pattern' or 'structure' abstracts the pure relations from them [Shapiro]
6. Mathematics / C. Sources of Mathematics / 6. Logicism / d. Logicism critique
Logicism seems to be a non-starter if (as is widely held) logic has no ontology of its own [Shapiro]
6. Mathematics / C. Sources of Mathematics / 7. Formalism
Term Formalism says mathematics is just about symbols - but real numbers have no names [Shapiro]
Game Formalism is just a matter of rules, like chess - but then why is it useful in science? [Shapiro]
Deductivism says mathematics is logical consequences of uninterpreted axioms [Shapiro]
6. Mathematics / C. Sources of Mathematics / 10. Constructivism / b. Intuitionism
Critics resent the way intuitionism cripples mathematics, but it allows new important distinctions [Shapiro]
6. Mathematics / C. Sources of Mathematics / 10. Constructivism / c. Conceptualism
Conceptualist are just realists or idealist or nominalists, depending on their view of concepts [Shapiro]
6. Mathematics / C. Sources of Mathematics / 10. Constructivism / d. Predicativism
'Impredicative' definitions refer to the thing being described [Shapiro]
8. Modes of Existence / E. Nominalism / 1. Nominalism / b. Nominalism about universals
If 'animal' is wholly present in Socrates and an ass, then 'animal' is rational and irrational [Abelard, by King,P]
Abelard was an irrealist about virtually everything apart from concrete individuals [Abelard, by King,P]
8. Modes of Existence / E. Nominalism / 3. Predicate Nominalism
Only words can be 'predicated of many'; the universality is just in its mode of signifying [Abelard, by Panaccio]
10. Modality / A. Necessity / 4. De re / De dicto modality
The de dicto-de re modality distinction dates back to Abelard [Abelard, by Orenstein]
12. Knowledge Sources / C. Rationalism / 1. Rationalism
Rationalism tries to apply mathematical methodology to all of knowledge [Shapiro]
18. Thought / E. Abstraction / 8. Abstractionism Critique
Abelard's problem is the purely singular aspects of things won't account for abstraction [Panaccio on Abelard]
19. Language / C. Assigning Meanings / 3. Predicates
Nothing external can truly be predicated of an object [Abelard, by Panaccio]
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 1. Nature of Ethics / a. Preconditions for ethics
Levinas took 'first philosophy' to begin with seeing the vulnerable faces of others [Levinas, by Aho]
24. Political Theory / D. Ideologies / 9. Communism
Levinas says Marxism is the replacement of individualist ethics, by solidarity and sociality [Levinas, by Critchley]
26. Natural Theory / B. Natural Kinds / 7. Critique of Kinds
Natural kinds are not special; they are just well-defined resemblance collections [Abelard, by King,P]