Infinitesimal idealization, easy road nominalism, and fractional quantum statistics

Synthese 196 (5):1963-1990 (2019)
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Abstract

It has been recently debated whether there exists a so-called “easy road” to nominalism. In this essay, I attempt to fill a lacuna in the debate by making a connection with the literature on infinite and infinitesimal idealization in science through an example from mathematical physics that has been largely ignored by philosophers. Specifically, by appealing to John Norton’s distinction between idealization and approximation, I argue that the phenomena of fractional quantum statistics bears negatively on Mary Leng’s proposed path to easy road nominalism, thereby partially defending Mark Colyvan’s claim that there is no easy road to nominalism.

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Elay Shech
Auburn University

References found in this work

Science Without Numbers: A Defence of Nominalism.Hartry H. Field - 1980 - Princeton, NJ, USA: Princeton University Press.
Theories and things.W. V. Quine (ed.) - 1981 - Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Studies in the logic of explanation.Carl Gustav Hempel & Paul Oppenheim - 1948 - Philosophy of Science 15 (2):135-175.

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