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On the Scope and Force of Indispensability Arguments

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 June 2023

Geoffrey Hellman
Geoffrey Hellman*
Affiliation:
University of Minnesota
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Extract

One nice thing about the title of this symposium is the ease of finding a one-word answer. A disadvantage, however, is that “science” is ambiguous: is “philosophy of mathematics” included in “philosophy of science” or not? If so, the one-word answer is obviously obvious; but if not, the same answer is still pretty obvious, or so I hope it will appear by the end of this symposium. In fact, I believe that recent work in foundations of mathematics, especially of the sort represented in this symposium, serves to sharpen considerably central debates in both philosophy of mathematics and philosophy of science generally, especially on the question of realism (vs. instrumentalism, or varieties of constructivism, or nominalism), and on the question of the indispensability of highly theoretical concepts and axioms for the more observational portions of mathematics and science.

Type
Part XIII. Is Foundational Work in Mathematics Relevant to the Philosophy of Science?
Information
PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association , Volume 1992 , Issue 2: Volume Two: Symposia and Invited Papers 1992 , 1993 , pp. 456 - 464
Copyright
Copyright © 1993 by the Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

1

This paper was presented at a symposium, “Is foundational work in mathematics relevant to the philosophy of science?” at the Philosophy of Science Association Meetings, Chicago, Nov. 1, 1992. Work of the author reported here has been supported by a National Science Foundation Scholars Award, No. 8922435.

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