Why are (some) Platonists so insouciant?

Philosophy 86 (2):213-229 (2011)
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Abstract

Some platonists truly agonize over the ontological commitments which their platonism demands of them. Peter van Inwagen, for example, confesses candidly,I am happy to admit that I am uneasy about believing in the existence of ‘causally irrelevant’ objects. The fact that abstract objects, if they exist, can be neither causes or [sic] effects is one of the many features of abstract objects that make nominalism so attractive. I should very much like to be a nominalist, but I don't see how to be one …

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10.1017/s0031819111000040

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William Lane Craig
Houston Baptist University

Citations of this work

Heartbreak at Hilbert's Hotel.Landon Hedrick - 2014 - Religious Studies 50 (1):27-46.

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References found in this work

Material beings.Peter Van Inwagen - 1990 - Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Truth and other enigmas.Michael Dummett - 1978 - Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Ontological anti-realism.David J. Chalmers - 2009 - In David Chalmers, David Manley & Ryan Wasserman (eds.), Metametaphysics: New Essays on the Foundations of Ontology. Oxford University Press.
Frege.Michael Dummett - 1973 - Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

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