Abstract

Intuitionism is occasionally advanced on the grounds that a classical understanding of mathematical discourse could not be acquired, given limitations of the experience available to the language learner. In this note, focusing on the acquisition of the universal quantifier, I argue that this route of attack against a classical construal results, at best, in a Pyrrhic victory. The conditions under which it is successful are such as to redound upon the tenability of intuitionism itself. Adjudication will not follow merely from attending to the learner''s experience. The nature of the agent''s ability to engage in conceptual extrapolation from that experience must be considered as well. (And divergent views regarding this are likely to recapitulate the original disagreement.).