Abstract
Geology is the study of rocks; astronomy is the study of stars; what is mathematics the study of? Mathematics has been variously construed as the science of numbers or abstract structures, as deductive reasoning in general, as a game with symbols, as a process of free mental ‘construction’, and as a very abstract branch of theoretical physics. Since we cannot agree on its subject matter it is not surprising that we differ on what philosophical questions to ask about it, what is required to justify it, or indeed whether it needs any sort of extra-mathematical foundation. In this chapter I shall try to formulate the correct question and to distinguish it from irrelevancies.
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© 1998 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
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Fletcher, P. (1998). Introduction and Statement of the Problem. In: Truth, Proof and Infinity. Synthese Library, vol 276. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-3616-9_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-3616-9_1
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
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