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Philosophy of mathematics is the branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of mathematics and its relationship with other human activities. Major themes that are dealt with in philosophy of mathematics include: Reality: The question is whether mathematics is a pure product of human mind or whether it has some reality by itself. Logic and ...
Aristotelian views of (cardinal or counting) numbers begin with Aristotle's observation that the number of a heap or collection is relative to the unit or measure chosen: "'number' means a measured plurality and a plurality of measures ... the measure must always be some identical thing predicable of all the things it measures, e.g. if the things are horses, the measure is 'horse'."
Considerations about mathematics being the language of nature can be found in the ideas of the Pythagoreans: the convictions that "Numbers rule the world" and "All is number", [7] [8] and two millennia later were also expressed by Galileo Galilei: "The book of nature is written in the language of mathematics".
An Introduction to the Philosophy of Mathematics is a 2012 textbook on the philosophy of mathematics by Mark Colyvan. It has a focus on issues in contemporary philosophy , such as the mathematical realism – anti-realism debate and the philosophical significance of mathematical practice, and largely skips over historical debates.
Ludwig Wittgenstein considered his chief contribution to be in the philosophy of mathematics, a topic to which he devoted much of his work between 1929 and 1944. [1] As with his philosophy of language, Wittgenstein's views on mathematics evolved from the period of the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus: with him changing from logicism (which was endorsed by his mentor Bertrand Russell) towards a ...
Analytic philosophy is a broad, contemporary movement or tradition within Western philosophy, especially anglophone philosophy, focused on analysis as a philosophical method. [a] [b] It is characterized by a clarity of prose; rigor in arguments; and making use of formal logic and mathematics, and, to a lesser degree, the natural sciences.
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Rather than characterize mathematics by deductive logic, intuitionism views mathematics as primarily about the construction of ideas in the mind: [9] The only possible foundation of mathematics must be sought in this construction under the obligation carefully to watch which constructions intuition allows and which not. [12] L. E. J. Brouwer 1907