Questions tagged [platonic-realism]
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Are Bourbaki and Deligne Mathematical Realists?
The following are two closely related questions.
What was Bourbaki's position on the ontological status of mathematical objects? Were they some kind of Realist/Platonist or were they Formalist?
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How do we know we've defined a thing properly when all definitions have exceptions? [closed]
I don’t understand definitions.
Let’s take this question: “What is a woman?”
Now if I am a Platonic Idealist (or some other essentialist) then I think that all women share the same essence and will ...
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How be so sure that implications are bivalent? (An attempt to resolve paradoxes of material implication)
The material conditional, P→Q defined as ￢P∨Q, is usually thought not to match the usual linguistics, as seen by many paradoxes. The Wikipedia article gives few good examples. I tried to resolve them ...
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How can mathematical results impact the physical world?
In his 2007 book I Am a Strange Loop, Douglas Hofstadter uses an analogy based on a domino computer.
Indeed, it is possible to build logical doors made of dominoes (see e.g. here) and realize simple ...
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If platonism was correct, would everything be real despite everything being formal?
In one of his recent essays (https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2021/04/why-does-the-universe-exist-some-perspectives-from-our-physics-project/) the scientist Stephen Wolfram says (at the end of it, ...
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Do Universals Possess a Different Kind of Reality to Particulars?
I have a long interest in the 'problem of universals' and a conviction that some form of either Platonic or Aristotelian realism in respect of universals is correct. This extends to what is called '...
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