Abstract

The notion of idealization has received considerable attention in contemporary philosophy of science but less in philosophy of mathematics. An exception was the ‘critical idealism’ of the neo-Kantian philosopher Ernst Cassirer. According to Cassirer the methodology of idealization plays a central role for mathematics and empirical science. In this paper it is argued that Cassirer's contributions in this area still deserve to be taken into account in the current debates in philosophy of mathematics. For extremely useful criticisms on earlier versions I am grateful to B.P. Larvor and another anonymous journal referee. CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this?