Can Mathematical Objects Be Causally Efficacious?

Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 62 (3):247–255 (2019)
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Abstract

Callard (2007) argues that it is metaphysically possible that a mathematical object, although abstract, causally affects the brain. I raise the following objections. First, a successful defence of mathematical realism requires not merely the metaphysical possibility but rather the actuality that a mathematical object affects the brain. Second, mathematical realists need to confront a set of three pertinent issues: why a mathematical object does not affect other concrete objects and other mathematical objects, what counts as a mathematical object, and how we can have knowledge about an unchanging object.

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Seungbae Park
Ulsan National Institute Of Science And Technology

Citations of this work

Can math move matter?Benjamin Callard - 2023 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 66 (3):355-380.
A defence of the evolutionary debunking argument.Man Him Ip - 2021 - Dissertation, University of Birmingham

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References found in this work

Mathematical truth.Paul Benacerraf - 1973 - Journal of Philosophy 70 (19):661-679.
Platonism and anti-Platonism in mathematics.Mark Balaguer - 1998 - New York: Oxford University Press.
Mathematics and Reality.Mary Leng - 2010 - Oxford: Oxford University Press.
What is Cantor's Continuum Problem?Kurt Gödel - 1947 - The American Mathematical Monthly 54 (9):515--525.

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