Is platonism a bad bet?

Australasian Journal of Philosophy 76 (1):115 – 119 (1998)
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Abstract

Recently Colin Cheyne and Charles Pigden have challenged supporters of mathematical indispensability arguments to give an account of how causally inert mathematical entities could be indispensable to science. Failing to meet this challenge, claim Cheyne and Pigden, would place Platonism in a no win situation: either there is no good reason to believe in mathematical entities or mathematical entities are not causally inert. The present paper argues that Platonism is well equipped to meet this challenge

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10.1080/00048409812348261

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Mark Colyvan
University of Sydney

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References found in this work

From a Logical Point of View.Willard Van Orman Quine - 1953 - Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Two Dogmas of Empiricism.Willard V. O. Quine - 1951 - Philosophical Review 60 (1):20–43.
Science Without Numbers: A Defence of Nominalism.Hartry H. Field - 1980 - Princeton, NJ, USA: Princeton University Press.
Realism, Mathematics & Modality.Hartry H. Field - 1989 - New York, NY, USA: Blackwell.
Realism in mathematics.Penelope Maddy - 1990 - New York: Oxford University Prress.

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