ENGLISH

Realism in Mathematics (Clarendon Paperbacks)

By Penelope Maddy

Book information

Year
1992
ISBN
019824035X, 9780198244523, 9780198240358, 0198244525
LCC
QA8.4 .M33 1990
Open Library ID
OL18433264M
Language
english
Format
PDF
Filesize
10 MB (10750150 bytes)
Pages
217\217
Orientation
no
Scanned
yes
Time added
2011-06-04 13:46:07

Description

Mathematicians tend to think of themselves as scientists investigating the features of real mathematical things, and the wildly successful application of mathematics in the physical sciences reinforces this picture of mathematics as an objective study. For philosophers, however, this realism about mathematics raises serious questions: What are mathematical things? Where are they? How do we know about them? Offering a scrupulously fair treatment of both mathematical and philosophical concerns, Penelope Maddy here delineates and defends a novel version of mathematical realism. She answers the traditional questions and poses a challenging new one, refocusing philosophical attention on the pressing foundational issues of contemporary mathematics.

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