Abstract

Philosophy of mathematics is in an alienated state. While regarded by the profession as a serious and legitimate subdiscipline, a passing knowledge of its subject matter is considered something of a luxury—or at least not required of a conscientious philosopher the way a passing knowledge of logic is. Philosophy of mathematics is thus regarded with a benign neglect: best left to the experts, whose opinions should be deferred to, but mostly irrelevant to the central concerns of the working philosopher. Its practitioners, however, often display a strikingly different attitude. Much of the enthusiasm for the subject matter derives from the recognition that undertaking and evaluating a position in the philosophy of mathematics involves undertaking and evaluating substantive commitments of general philosophical interest. Indeed many practitioners, though by no means blind to the intrinsic interest of their discipline, regard philosophy of mathematics also as a means of addressing more general issues in philosophy. Unfortunately the significance of philosophy of mathematics to the work of the nonspecialist has for the most part been under appreciated.