Zeroism is an alternative philosophy of mathematics (Raju, 2007), based on śūnyavāda, a realistic philosophy often ascribed to the Buddhist teacher Nagarjuna (2nd c. CE). It is now called zeroism to emphasize that the concern is with the practical and contemporary benefits of that śūnyavāda philosophy, as distinct from fidelity to an interpretation of the textual sources of śūnyavāda, which have often been misunderstood and mangled by scholars unfamiliar with the idiom. Indeed, the whole idea of relying on the authority of textual sources is a practice of scriptural traditions and contrary to śūnyavāda, which denies the validity of proof by authority.
Zeroism is a realistic philosophy which accepts universal practical procedures in mathematics and rejects, as erroneous and culturally biased, the formalist (or idealist) attempt to understand mathematics as metaphysics. (Formalism is the philosophy underlying mathematics as taught in schools and colleges today.)
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Raju, C.K. (2014). Zeroism. In: Selin, H. (eds) Encyclopaedia of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Non-Western Cultures. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-3934-5_10248-1
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