Skip to main content

A Note on the Ontology of Mathematics

  • Conference paper
  • First Online:
Logic and Its Applications (ICLA 2023)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 13963))

Included in the following conference series:

  • 221 Accesses

Abstract

Provocation behind writing this paper has come from celebrated French philosopher Alain Badiou’s slogan “Mathematics is ontology” and subsequent reading of his book [2]. However, this is not a critique of the book or a response to his philosophy. Some philosophico-mathematical issues have been raised by the author of the book in order to clarify and establish the slogan. In this paper, responses to some such issues have been presented such as the issues of continuum, Continuum Hypothesis, constructible sets and Axiom of Foundation. Remarks on these issues are made, though in brief. Finally, it is remarked that in the present era ontology of mathematics has to be pluralistic and inconsistency-tolerant.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 69.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  1. Badiou, A.: Mathematics and philosophy. In: Duffy, S. (ed.) Virtual Mathematics: The Logic of Difference, pp. 16–30. Clinamen Press (2006)

    Google Scholar 

  2. Badiou, A.: Being and Event. Continuum International Publishing Group (2012). Translated from the 2015 French original by Oliver Feltman

    Google Scholar 

  3. Bell, J.L.: The Continuous, the Discrete and the Infinitesimal in Philosophy and Mathematics. TWOSPS, vol. 82. Springer, Cham (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-18707-1

    Book  MATH  Google Scholar 

  4. Bolc, L., Borowik, P.: Many-Valued Logics. Theoretical Foundations, vol. 1. Springer, Berlin (1992)

    Book  MATH  Google Scholar 

  5. Chakraborty, M.K.: Mathematical RUPAs and their artists. History Sci. Philos. Cult. Indian Civilization 13(2), 527–533 (2012). Edited by P. K. Sengupta

    Google Scholar 

  6. Chakraborty, M.K., Dutta, S.: Theory of Graded Consequence. LASLL, Springer, Singapore (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-8896-5

    Book  MATH  Google Scholar 

  7. Chakraborty, M.K., Friend, M.: Preface. J. Indian Council Philos. Res. Spec. Issue: Pluralism Math. 34(2), 205–207 (2017). Edited by M. K. Chakraborty and M. Friend

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Chakraborty, M.K., Sirkar, S.: Aspects of mathematical pluralism. J. Math. Cult. 10(1), 21–52 (2016)

    Google Scholar 

  9. da Costa, N.C.A.: On the theory of inconsistent formal systems. Notre Dame J. Formal Logic 15, 497–510 (1974)

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  10. D’Ambrosio, U.: Ethnomathematics, the nature of mathematics and mathematics education. In: Mathematics, Education and Philosophy. Stud. Math. Ed. Series, vol. 3, pp. 230–242. Falmer, London (1994)

    Google Scholar 

  11. Dutta, S., Chakraborty, M.K.: Consequence–inconsistency interrelation: in the framework of paraconsistent logics. In: Beziau, J.-Y., Chakraborty, M., Dutta, S. (eds.) New Directions in Paraconsistent Logic. SPMS, vol. 152, pp. 269–283. Springer, New Delhi (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-81-322-2719-9_12

    Chapter  MATH  Google Scholar 

  12. Friend, M.: Pluralism in Mathematics: A New Position in Philosophy of Mathematics. LEUS, vol. 32. Springer, Dordrecht (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-7058-4

    Book  MATH  Google Scholar 

  13. Hilbert, D.: Über das Unendliche. Mathematische Annalen 95(1), 161–190 (1926)

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  14. Joseph, G.G.: Different ways of knowing: contrasting styles of argument in Indian and Greek mathematical traditions. In: Mathematics, Education and Philosophy. Stud. Math. Ed. Series, vol. 3, pp. 194–204. Falmer, London (1994)

    Google Scholar 

  15. Lakoff, G., Núñez, R.E.: Where Mathematics Comes From. Basic Books, New York (2000). How the embodied mind brings mathematics into being

    Google Scholar 

  16. Leibniz, G.W.: The Monadology and Other Philosophical Writings. Oxford University Press (1925). Second impression, Translated, with an Introduction and notes by R. Latta (the first edition was published in 1898)

    Google Scholar 

  17. Priest, G.: What’s so bad about contradictions? In: Priest, G., Beall, J., Armour-Garb, B. (eds.) The Law of Non-contradiction, pp. 23–38. Oxford University Press, New York (2004)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  18. Vargas, F.: A full model for Peirce’s continuum. In: Bellucci, F., Pietarinen, A.V. (eds.) Advances in Peircean Mathematics, Peirceana, vol. 7, pp. 230–242. De Gruyter, Berlin/Boston (2022)

    Google Scholar 

  19. Zadeh, L.A.: Fuzzy sets. Inf. Control 8, 338–353 (1965)

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgement

I thank my student Mr. Sayantan Roy for extending technical help in writing this paper and making some important remarks.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Mihir Kumar Chakraborty .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2023 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this paper

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this paper

Chakraborty, M.K. (2023). A Note on the Ontology of Mathematics. In: Banerjee, M., Sreejith, A.V. (eds) Logic and Its Applications. ICLA 2023. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 13963. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-26689-8_1

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-26689-8_1

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-031-26688-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-031-26689-8

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics