Mathematics and Indispensability

Datos Bibliográficos

ID10693514
AutoresElliott Sober (0000-0003-3130-1263, autor de correspondencia)
Año1993
Volumen102
Número1
Páginas35
Fecha de publicación1993-01-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaThe Philosophical Review (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0031-8108 • E-ISSN: 1558-1470
EditorialJSTOR (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/2185652
OpenAlexW2316606048
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas39
Referencias citadas6

Mathematics plays an indispensable role in the explanations that modern science provides of empirical phenomena. From this unexceptionable observation, a controversial philosophical conclusion is sometimes drawn. The claim is advanced that the empirical success of a scientific theory confirms the mathematical claims embedded within it. According to this line of thinking, we have reason to believe that mathematical statements are true, and that the entities they quantify over exist, because mathematics is indispensable to empirical science. This indispensability argument for mathematical realism gives voice to an attitude towards confirmation elaborated by Quine. Quine's holism-his interpretation of Duhem's thesis-asserts that theories are confirmed only as totalities. A theory makes contact with experience only as a whole, and so it receives confirmation only as a whole. If mathematics is an inextricable part of a physical theory, then the empirical success of the theory confirms the entire theory-mathematics and all.2'3

Analytic philosophy · Contemporary philosophy · Epistemology · General interest · Mathematics education · Mathematics · Philosophy · Philosophy and History of Science · Philosophy, Science, and History · Science and Climate Studies