Realism, mathematics, and modality

Author(s)

• Field, Hartry H.

Bibliographic Information

Realism, mathematics, and modality

Hartry Field

Blackwell, 1989

Note

Bibliography: p. [282]-285

Includes index

Description and Table of Contents

Description

This volume presents the work of a philosopher of mathematics, and combines central papers in that area with an essay on the philosophy of space and time. The overriding concern of most of the essays is with the development of a satisfactory fictionalist account of mathematics. Hartry Field develops and defends an original anti-Platonist philosophy of mathematics which suggests that mathematics need not be true, but instead must be "conservative" and dispensable in applications. In defending its dispensability, Field is led to reassess prevailing views about modality.

Table of Contents

• Introductory
• Fictionalism, Epistemology and Modality
• Realism and Anti-Realism about Mathematics
• Is Mathematical Knowledge Just Logical Knowledge?
• On Conservativeness and Incompleteness
• Platonism for Cheap? Crispin Wright on Frege's Context Principle
• Can We Dispense with Space-time?
• Realism, Mathematics and Modality.

by "Nielsen BookData"

Details

• NCID: BA07698809
• ISBN:
  • 0631163034
• LCCN: 88027538
• Country Code: uk
• Title Language Code: eng
• Text Language Code: eng
• Place of Publication: Oxford, UK ; New York, NY, USA
• Pages/Volumes: viii, 290 p.
• Size: 24 cm
• Classification:
  • LCC : QA8.6
  • DC19 : 510/.1
• Subject Headings:
  • LCSH : Mathematics -- Philosophy
  • LCSH : Space and time