Mathematics and Reality

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  • Engels
  • Hardcover
  • 9780199280797
  • 22 april 2010
  • 278 pagina's
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Samenvatting

Mary Leng defends a philosophical account of the nature of mathematics which views it as a kind of fiction (albeit an extremely useful fiction). On this view, the claims of our ordinary mathematical theories are more closely analogous to utterances made in the context of storytelling than to utterances whose aim is to assert literal truths.



Mary Leng offers a defense of mathematical fictionalism, according to which we have no reason to believe that there are any mathematical objects. Perhaps the most pressing challenge to mathematical fictionalism is the indispensability argument for the truth of our mathematical theories (and therefore for the existence of the mathematical objects posited by those theories). According to this argument, if we have reason to believe anything, we have reason to believe that the claims of our best empirical theories are (at least approximately) true. But since claims whose truth would require the existence of mathematical objects are indispensable in formulating our best empirical theories, it follows that we have good reason to believe in the mathematical objects posited by those mathematical theories used in empirical science, and therefore to believe that the mathematical theories utilized in empirical science are true. Previous responses to the indispensability argument have focussed on arguing that mathematical assumptions can be dispensed with in formulating our empirical theories. Leng, by contrast, offers an account of the role of mathematics in empirical science according to which the successful use of mathematics in formulating our empirical theories need not rely on the truth of the mathematics utilized.

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Taal
en
Bindwijze
Hardcover
Oorspronkelijke releasedatum
22 april 2010
Aantal pagina's
278
Illustraties
Nee

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Hoofdauteur
Mary Leng
Hoofduitgeverij
Oxford University Press

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Nee
Product breedte
163 mm
Product hoogte
22 mm
Product lengte
241 mm
Studieboek
Ja
Verpakking breedte
163 mm
Verpakking hoogte
19 mm
Verpakking lengte
241 mm
Verpakkingsgewicht
590 g

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EAN
9780199280797

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