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Science Nominalized

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Terence Horgan
Terence Horgan*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, Memphis State University
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Abstract

I propose a way of formulating scientific laws and magnitude attributions which eliminates ontological commitment to mathematical entities. I argue that science only requires quantitative sentences as thus formulated, and hence that we ought to deny the existence of sets and numbers. I argue that my approach cannot plausibly be extended to the concrete “theoretical” entities of science.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 51 , Issue 4 , December 1984 , pp. 529 - 549
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1984

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Footnotes

†

I am grateful to Lawrence Lombard, Timothy McCarthy, John Post, Michael Tye, James Woodward, and an anonymous referee for their useful comments on earlier versions of this paper, and to Norman Gillespie, Nancy Simco, and James Woodward for helpful discussion.

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