36 ideas
17713 | After 1903, Husserl avoids metaphysical commitments [Mares] |
17824 | The master science is physical objects divided into sets [Maddy] |
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] |
17715 | The truth of the axioms doesn't matter for pure mathematics, but it does for applied [Mares] |
8762 | Two definitions of 3 in terms of sets disagree over whether 1 is a member of 3 [Shapiro] |
17825 | Set theory (unlike the Peano postulates) can explain why multiplication is commutative [Maddy] |
17826 | Standardly, numbers are said to be sets, which is neat ontology and epistemology [Maddy] |
17828 | Numbers are properties of sets, just as lengths are properties of physical objects [Maddy] |
17827 | Sets exist where their elements are, but numbers are more like universals [Maddy] |
17830 | Number theory doesn't 'reduce' to set theory, because sets have number properties [Maddy] |
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] |
17823 | If mathematical objects exist, how can we know them, and which objects are they? [Maddy] |
17716 | Mathematics is relations between properties we abstract from experience [Mares] |
17829 | Number words are unusual as adjectives; we don't say 'is five', and numbers always come first [Maddy] |
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] |
17703 | Light in straight lines is contingent a priori; stipulated as straight, because they happen to be so [Mares] |
17714 | Aristotelians dislike the idea of a priori judgements from pure reason [Mares] |
8725 | Rationalism tries to apply mathematical methodology to all of knowledge [Shapiro] |
17705 | Empiricists say rationalists mistake imaginative powers for modal insights [Mares] |
17700 | The most popular view is that coherent beliefs explain one another [Mares] |
17704 | Operationalism defines concepts by our ways of measuring them [Mares] |
17710 | Aristotelian justification uses concepts abstracted from experience [Mares] |
17706 | The essence of a concept is either its definition or its conceptual relations? [Mares] |
17701 | Possible worlds semantics has a nice compositional account of modal statements [Mares] |
17702 | Unstructured propositions are sets of possible worlds; structured ones have components [Mares] |
17708 | Maybe space has points, but processes always need regions with a size [Mares] |