TY - JOUR
T1 - A Scholastic-Realist Modal-Structuralism
AU - Pietarinen, Ahti Veikko
N1 - Funding information:
Supported by the Estonian Research Council (PUT 267: The Diagrammatic Mind, PI A.-V. Pietarinen).
PY - 2014/10/1
Y1 - 2014/10/1
N2 - How are we to understand the talk about properties of structures the existence of which is conditional upon the assumption of the reality of those structures? Mathematics is not about abstract objects, yet unlike fictionalism, modal-structuralism respects the truth of theorems and proofs. But it is nominalistic with respect to possibilia. The problem is that, for fear of reducing possibilia to actualities, the second-order modal logic that claims to axiomatise modal existence has no real semantics. There is no cross-identification of higher-order mathematical entities and thus we cannot know what those entities are. I suggest that a scholastic notion of realism, interspersed with cross-identification of higher-order entities, can deliver the semantics without collapse. This semantics of modalities is related to Peirce's logic and his pragmaticist philosophy of mathematics.
AB - How are we to understand the talk about properties of structures the existence of which is conditional upon the assumption of the reality of those structures? Mathematics is not about abstract objects, yet unlike fictionalism, modal-structuralism respects the truth of theorems and proofs. But it is nominalistic with respect to possibilia. The problem is that, for fear of reducing possibilia to actualities, the second-order modal logic that claims to axiomatise modal existence has no real semantics. There is no cross-identification of higher-order mathematical entities and thus we cannot know what those entities are. I suggest that a scholastic notion of realism, interspersed with cross-identification of higher-order entities, can deliver the semantics without collapse. This semantics of modalities is related to Peirce's logic and his pragmaticist philosophy of mathematics.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84923876387&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.4000/philosophiascientiae.978
DO - 10.4000/philosophiascientiae.978
M3 - Journal article
AN - SCOPUS:84923876387
SN - 1281-2463
VL - 18
SP - 127
EP - 138
JO - Philosophia Scientiae
JF - Philosophia Scientiae
IS - 3
ER -