Maddy, Penelope Professor of Philosophy, University of California, Irvine
Print publication date: 1992 (this edition)
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online:
Print ISBN-13: 978-0-19-824035-8
doi:10.1093/019824035X.003.0003
 

Penelope Maddy
Begins with a review of Benacerraf's metaphysical challenge to mathematical realism based on sets: how, for example, can number theory be the study of particular sets when other sets with the same structural relations would seem to do just as well? The set theoretic realist gives the straightforward response that numbers are not particular sets, but properties of sets. I close with a digression on the prospects for ‘Frege numbers’—i.e. numbers construed as proper classes.
Keywords: Benacerraf, Frege numbers, numbers, proper classes, set theoretic realism
doi:10.1093/019824035X.003.0003
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