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This chapter presents a formal system for reasoning about logical possibility, whose axioms (I claim) seem clearly true, and whose inference methods seem clearly truth preserving.
This chapter situates both the nominalist and neo-Carnapian approaches to mathematics introduced in Chapter 10 with particular reference to Logicism and Structuralism.
This chapter advocates a particular Putnamian Potentialist understanding of set theory, specifying how set theoretic sentences are to be formalized using the conditional logical possibility operator.
This chapter introduces the key notion of (conditional) logical possibility, and argues that using it to formulate a version of Putnamian potentialism solve the problems noted in Chapter 3.
This chapter introduces the book’s key aims: showing how a logical possibility operator helps formulate potentialist set theory, intuitively justify the ZFC axioms, clarify applied mathematics and more.
This chapter presents (and notes certain advantages of) a basic modal if-thenist strategy for nominalistically paraphrasing Platonism theories in response to indispensability arguments.
This chapter notes how the potentialist set theory advocated in previous chapters can be naturally extended to a larger philosophy of mathematics, either in a nominalist or a neo-carnapian fashion.
This chapter discusses problems for actualist concerning the intended height of the hierarchy of sets and intuitively justifying the axiom of Replacement.
This chapter suggests classic indispensability worries about nominalizing scientific theories can be answered by adding some cheap tricks to the modal if-thenist paraphrase strategy of Chapter 12.
This chapter sketches the justification for (potentialist translations of) the ZFC axioms for set theory, from axioms of Chapter 13, including a somewhat distinctive justification for Replacement.
This chapter contrasts some different Indispensability arguments (Quinean, Explanatory, Reference and Grounding) against mathematical nominalism and tries to clarify what it takes to answer them.
This chapter reviews existing forms of potentialist set theory in the Puntamian school. It discusses proposals by Putnam and Hellman, and notes certain problems for these.