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An Introduction To The Philosophy 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. It covers a range of topics in contemporary philosophy of mathematics including various forms of mathematical realism, the Quine–Putnam indispensability argument, mathematical fictionalism, mathematical explanation, the " unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics", paraconsistent mathematics, and the role of mathematical notation in the progress of mathematics. The book was praised as accessible and well-written and the reaction to its contemporary focus was largely positive, although some academic reviewers felt that it should have covered the historical debates over logicism, formalism and intuitionism in more detail. Other aspects of the book t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mark Colyvan
Mark Colyvan is an Australian philosopher and Professor of Philosophy at the University of Sydney. He is a former president of the Australasian Association of Philosophy. Colyvan is known for his research on philosophy of mathematics The philosophy of mathematics is the branch of philosophy that studies the assumptions, foundations, and implications of mathematics. It aims to understand the nature and methods of mathematics, and find out the place of mathematics in people's .... Books * '' The Indispensability of Mathematics'', Oxford University Press, 2001 * '' Ecological Orbits: How Planets Move and Populations Grow'', Oxford University Press, 2004 * '' An Introduction to the Philosophy of Mathematics'', Cambridge University Press, 2012 References External linksPersonal Website [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
MAA Reviews
The Mathematical Association of America (MAA) is a professional society that focuses on mathematics accessible at the undergraduate level. Members include university, college, and high school teachers; graduate and undergraduate students; pure and applied mathematicians; computer scientists; statisticians; and many others in academia, government, business, and industry. The MAA was founded in 1915 and is headquartered at 1529 18th Street, Northwest in the Dupont Circle neighborhood of Washington, D.C. The organization publishes mathematics journals and books, including the ''American Mathematical Monthly'' (established in 1894 by Benjamin Finkel), the most widely read mathematics journal in the world according to records on JSTOR. Mission and Vision The mission of the MAA is to advance the understanding of mathematics and its impact on our world. We envision a society that values the power and beauty of mathematics and fully realizes its potential to promote human flouri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hilary Putnam
Hilary Whitehall Putnam (; July 31, 1926 – March 13, 2016) was an American philosopher, mathematician, and computer scientist, and a major figure in analytic philosophy in the second half of the 20th century. He made significant contributions to philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, philosophy of mathematics, and philosophy of science. Outside philosophy, Putnam contributed to mathematics and computer science. Together with Martin Davis he developed the Davis–Putnam algorithm for the Boolean satisfiability problem and he helped demonstrate the unsolvability of Hilbert's tenth problem. Putnam was known for his willingness to apply equal scrutiny to his own philosophical positions as to those of others, subjecting each position to rigorous analysis until he exposed its flaws. As a result, he acquired a reputation for frequently changing his positions. In philosophy of mind, Putnam is known for his argument against the type-identity of mental and physical states based on ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Continuum Hypothesis
In mathematics, the continuum hypothesis (abbreviated CH) is a hypothesis about the possible sizes of infinite sets. It states that or equivalently, that In Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory with the axiom of choice (ZFC), this is equivalent to the following equation in aleph numbers: 2^=\aleph_1, or even shorter with beth numbers: \beth_1 = \aleph_1. The continuum hypothesis was advanced by Georg Cantor in 1878, and establishing its truth or falsehood is the first of Hilbert's 23 problems presented in 1900. The answer to this problem is independent of ZFC, so that either the continuum hypothesis or its negation can be added as an axiom to ZFC set theory, with the resulting theory being consistent if and only if ZFC is consistent. This independence was proved in 1963 by Paul Cohen, complementing earlier work by Kurt Gödel in 1940. The name of the hypothesis comes from the term '' the continuum'' for the real numbers. History Cantor believed the continuum hypothesis to be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Independence (mathematical Logic)
In mathematical logic, independence is the unprovability of a sentence from other sentences. A sentence σ is independent of a given first-order theory ''T'' if ''T'' neither proves nor refutes σ; that is, it is impossible to prove σ from ''T'', and it is also impossible to prove from ''T'' that σ is false. Sometimes, σ is said (synonymously) to be undecidable from ''T''; this is not the same meaning of " decidability" as in a decision problem. A theory ''T'' is independent if each axiom in ''T'' is not provable from the remaining axioms in ''T''. A theory for which there is an independent set of axioms is independently axiomatizable. Usage note Some authors say that σ is independent of ''T'' when ''T'' simply cannot prove σ, and do not necessarily assert by this that ''T'' cannot refute σ. These authors will sometimes say "σ is independent of and consistent with ''T''" to indicate that ''T'' can neither prove nor refute σ. Independence results in set theory Many inte ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paul Cohen
Paul Joseph Cohen (April 2, 1934 – March 23, 2007) was an American mathematician. He is best known for his proofs that the continuum hypothesis and the axiom of choice are independent from Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory, for which he was awarded a Fields Medal. Early life and education Cohen was born in Long Branch, New Jersey, into a Jewish family that had immigrated to the United States from what is now Poland; he grew up in Brooklyn.. He graduated in 1950, at age 16, from Stuyvesant High School in New York City. Cohen next studied at the Brooklyn College from 1950 to 1953, but he left without earning his bachelor's degree when he learned that he could start his graduate studies at the University of Chicago with just two years of college. At Chicago, Cohen completed his master's degree in mathematics in 1954 and his Doctor of Philosophy degree in 1958, under supervision of Antoni Zygmund. The title of his doctoral thesis was ''Topics in the Theory of Uniqueness of Trigonome ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gödel's Incompleteness Theorems
Gödel's incompleteness theorems are two theorems of mathematical logic Mathematical logic is the study of logic, formal logic within mathematics. Major subareas include model theory, proof theory, set theory, and recursion theory. Research in mathematical logic commonly addresses the mathematical properties of for ... that are concerned with the limits of in formal axiomatic theories. These results, published by Kurt Gödel in 1931, are important both in mathematical logic and in the philosophy of mathematics. The theorems are widely, but not universally, interpreted as showing that Hilbert's program to find a complete and consistent set of axioms for all mathematics is impossible. The first incompleteness theorem states that no consistency, consistent system of axioms whose theorems can be listed by an effective procedure (i.e., an algorithm) is capable of proving all truths about the arithmetic of natural numbers. For any such consistent formal system, there will always b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cantor's Theorem
In mathematical set theory, Cantor's theorem is a fundamental result which states that, for any set A, the set of all subsets of A, the power set of A, has a strictly greater cardinality than A itself. For finite sets, Cantor's theorem can be seen to be true by simple enumeration of the number of subsets. Counting the empty set as a subset, a set with n elements has a total of 2^n subsets, and the theorem holds because 2^n > n for all non-negative integers. Much more significant is Cantor's discovery of an argument that is applicable to any set, and shows that the theorem holds for infinite sets also. As a consequence, the cardinality of the real numbers, which is the same as that of the power set of the integers, is strictly larger than the cardinality of the integers; see Cardinality of the continuum for details. The theorem is named for German mathematician Georg Cantor, who first stated and proved it at the end of the 19th century. Cantor's theorem had immediate and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Löwenheim–Skolem Theorem
In mathematical logic, the Löwenheim–Skolem theorem is a theorem on the existence and cardinality of models, named after Leopold Löwenheim and Thoralf Skolem. The precise formulation is given below. It implies that if a countable first-order theory has an infinite model, then for every infinite cardinal number ''κ'' it has a model of size ''κ'', and that no first-order theory with an infinite model can have a unique model up to isomorphism. As a consequence, first-order theories are unable to control the cardinality of their infinite models. The (downward) Löwenheim–Skolem theorem is one of the two key properties, along with the compactness theorem, that are used in Lindström's theorem to characterize first-order logic. In general, the Löwenheim–Skolem theorem does not hold in stronger logics such as second-order logic. Theorem In its general form, the Löwenheim–Skolem Theorem states that for every signature ''σ'', every infinite ''σ''-structure ''M'' and e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Australasian Journal Of Philosophy
The ''Australasian Journal of Philosophy'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal of philosophy and "one of the oldest English-language philosophy journals in the world". It was established in 1923 as ''The Australasian Journal of Psychology and Philosophy'', obtaining its current title in 1947. It is published by Routledge on behalf of the Australasian Association of Philosophy. In 2007, it was rated "A" in the European Reference Index in the Humanities. It is abstracted and indexed by the Arts and Humanities Citation Index, Historical Abstracts, Scopus, Philosopher's Index, ProQuest databases, and Current Contents/Arts & Humanities. History Continuously published since its foundation in 1923 – with all members of the ''Australasian Association of Psychology and Philosophy'' receiving copies of the journal free of charge as a perquisite of their membership (it was also available to non-members at a cost of three shillings an issue, or ten shillings a year) – it ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Bulletin Of Symbolic Logic
The Association for Symbolic Logic (ASL) is an international organization of specialists in mathematical logic and philosophical logic. The ASL was founded in 1936, and its first president was Alonzo Church. The current president of the ASL is Julia F. Knight. Publications The ASL publishes books and academic journals. Its three official journals are: * ''Journal of Symbolic Logic'(website)– publishes research in all areas of mathematical logic. Founded in 1936, . * ''Bulletin of Symbolic Logic'(website)– publishes primarily expository articles and reviews. Founded in 1995, . * ''Review of Symbolic Logic'(website)– publishes research relating to logic, philosophy, science, and their interactions. Founded in 2008, . In addition, the ASL has a sponsored journal: * ''Journal of Logic and Analysis'(website)– publishes research on the interactions between mathematical logic and pure and applied analysis. Founded in 2009 as an open-access successor to the Springer ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
