Deflating Existential Consequence
A Case for Nominalism
Azzouni, Jody Professor of Philosophy, Tufts University
Print publication date: 2004 (this edition)
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: January 2005
Print ISBN-13: 978-0-19-515988-2
doi:10.1093/0195159888.003.0010
Jody Azzouni
The ontological commitments of various applied mathematical theories are evaluated by determining which posits involved are ontologically independent. The most intricate of these, a portion of Newtonian physics, involves the evaluation of spatial and temporal points, space itself, forces, and so on. It’s argued that none of the former, despite being ontological commitments of the theory in the Quinean sense, are commitments in the more refined sense developed in this book.
Keywords: absolute space, forces, ontological commitments, ontological independence, Newtonian physics, spatial points, temporal points,
doi:10.1093/0195159888.003.0010
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I TRUTH AND ONTOLOGY
II APPLIED MATHEMATICS AND ITS POSITS