I'm especially interested in getting mathematicians' take on this. It seems to me that if fictionalism is true, then mathematics is not a science of discovering facts about the world but a method for inventing useful fictions that help us make sense of the world. Moreover, do you think the Indispensability Argument for Platonism refutes fictionalism?
RE: if fictionalism is true, then mathematics is not a science of discovering facts about the world but a method for inventing useful fictions that help us make sense of the world.
What is meant by “discovering facts about the world” or “making sense of the world”? To me that sounds like applied mathematics, which I think is independent of whichever philosophical account of mathematics is correct. Also, even if fictionalism were correct, that would not foreclose discovery in mathematics, since it is impossible to foresee all the formal interconnections and logical consequences of our formal "inventions".
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Philosophy
- Philosophy of Mathematics