Structuralism without structures

Philosophia Mathematica 4 (2):100-123 (1996)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Recent technical developments in the logic of nominalism make it possible to improve and extend significantly the approach to mathematics developed in Mathematics without Numbers. After reviewing the intuitive ideas behind structuralism in general, the modal-structuralist approach as potentially class-free is contrasted broadly with other leading approaches. The machinery of nominalistic ordered pairing (Burgess-Hazen-Lewis) and plural quantification (Boolos) can then be utilized to extend the core systems of modal-structural arithmetic and analysis respectively to full, classical, polyadic third- and fourthorder number theory. The mathenatics of many structures of central importance in functional analysis, measure theory, and topology can be recovered within essentially these frameworks.

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 91,219

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

What structures could not be.Jacob Busch - 2003 - International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 17 (3):211 – 225.
Structure and identity.Stewart Shapiro - 2006 - In Fraser MacBride (ed.), Identity and Modality. Oxford University Press. pp. 34--69.
What numbers could be (and, hence, necessarily are).Mark Eli Kalderon - 1996 - Philosophia Mathematica 4 (3):238-255.
Structuralism's unpaid epistemological debts.Bob Hale - 1996 - Philosophia Mathematica 4 (2):124--47.
Structuralism and Meta-Mathematics.Simon Friederich - 2010 - Erkenntnis 73 (1):67 - 81.

Analytics

Added to PP
2009-01-28

Downloads
177 (#106,168)

6 months
25 (#108,197)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Geoffrey Hellman
University of Minnesota

Citations of this work

Plural quantification.Ø Linnebo - 2008 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Plural quantification exposed.Øystein Linnebo - 2003 - Noûs 37 (1):71–92.
In defense of Countabilism.David Builes & Jessica M. Wilson - 2022 - Philosophical Studies 179 (7):2199-2236.
Three varieties of mathematical structuralism.Geoffrey Hellman - 2001 - Philosophia Mathematica 9 (2):184-211.

View all 28 citations / Add more citations

References found in this work

Science Without Numbers: A Defence of Nominalism.Hartry H. Field - 1980 - Princeton, NJ, USA: Princeton University Press.
Parts of Classes.David K. Lewis - 1991 - Mind 100 (3):394-397.
Nominalist platonism.George Boolos - 1985 - Philosophical Review 94 (3):327-344.

View all 22 references / Add more references