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Objects and Structures in the Formal Sciences

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2022

Emily Grosholz
Emily Grosholz*
Affiliation:
Pennsylvania State University
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Extract

The priority of mathematics in the construction and deployment of the physical sciences has recently come under attack. Empiricism in the philosophy of mathematics, an offshoot of the trend towards naturalized epistemologies, subordinates formal disciplines to empirical facts (conceived variously as experience or experiment). (Kitcher 1983 and Maddy 1991) When allied with structuralism (Chihara 1973 and Resnik 1981,1982,1990), which denies to mathematics any specific subject matter of its own, it displaces intelligibility, heuristic force, and explanatory power away from mathematics into the realm of “fact”.

In this essay, I will argue that mathematics, and mechanics conceived as a formal science, do have their own proper subject matters, their own proper unities.

Type
Part VII. Realism: Causes, Capacities and Mathematics
Information
PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association , Volume 1992 , Issue 1: Volume One: Contributed Papers 1992 , 1992 , pp. 251 - 260
Copyright
Copyright © 1992 by the Philosophy of Science Association

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