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Philosophy of mathematics is the branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of mathematics and its relationship to other areas of philosophy, particularly epistemology and metaphysics. Central questions posed include whether or not mathematical objects are purely abstract entities or are in some way concrete, and in what the relationship ...
The role of mathematics in Western philosophy has grown and expanded from Pythagoras onwards. It is clear that numbers held a particular importance for the Pythagorean school , although it was the later work of Plato that attracts the label of mathematicism from modern philosophers.
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
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.
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'."
Logicism is a school of thought, and research programme, in the philosophy of mathematics, based on the thesis that mathematics is an extension of logic or that some or all mathematics may be derived in a suitable formal system whose axioms and rules of inference are 'logical' in nature.
There is no general consensus about the definition of mathematics or its epistemological status—that is, its place inside knowledge. A great many professional mathematicians take no interest in a definition of mathematics, or consider it undefinable. There is not even consensus on whether mathematics is an art or a science.