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Science without numbers : a defense of nominalism / Hartry Field.
Author
Field, Hartry H., 1946-
[Browse]
Format
Book
Language
English
Εdition
Second edition.
Published/Created
Oxford, United Kingdom : Oxford University Press, 2016.
Description
vi, P-53, vi, 111 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm
Availability
Available Online
Oxford Scholarship - Oxford University Press: Philosophy
Copies in the Library
Location
Call Number
Status
Location Service
Notes
Firestone Library - Stacks
Q175 .F477 2016
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Details
Subject(s)
Science
—
Philosophy
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Mathematics
—
Philosophy
[Browse]
Nominalism
[Browse]
Summary note
"Science Without Numbers caused a stir in philosophy on its original publication in 1980, with its bold nominalist approach to the ontology of mathematics and science. Hartry Field argues that we can explain the utility of mathematics without assuming it true. Part of the argument is that good mathematics has a special feature ('conservativeness') that allows it to be applied to 'nominalistic' claims (roughly, those neutral to the existence of mathematical entities) in a way that generates nominalistic consequences more easily without generating any new ones. Field goes on to argue that we can axiomatize physical theories using nominalistic claims only, and that in fact this has advantages over the usual axiomatizations that are independent of nominalism. There has been much debate about the book since it first appeared. It is now reissued in a revised contains a substantial new preface giving the author's current views on the original book and the issues that were raised in the subsequent discussion of it." --Publisher's description.
Notes
Originally published in 1980.
"First Edition published in 2016"--Title page verso
Bibliographic references
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Contents
New to this edition
Arithmetic and cardinality quantifiers
Mereology and logic
Representation theorems
Conservativeness
Indispensability
Other forms of anti-Platonism
Miscellaneous technicalia
Contents for the first edition
Preliminary remarks
Why the utility of Mathematical entities is unlike the utility of theoretical entities ; Appendix: on conservativeness
First illustration of why Mathematical entities are useful: Arithmetic
Second illustration of why mathematical entities are useful: Geometry and distance
Nominalism and the structure of physical space
My strategy for nominalizing Physics, and its advantages
A nominalistic treatment of Newtonian space-time
A nominalistic treatment of quantities, and a preview of a nominalistic treatment of the laws involving them
Newtonian Gravitational Theory nominalized
Continuity
Products and ratios
Signed products and ratios
Derivatives
Second (and higher) derivatives
Laplaceans
Poisson's equation
Inner products
Gradients
Differentiation of Vector Fields
The Law of Motion
General Remarks
Logic and ontology.
Show 28 more Contents items
ISBN
0198777914 ((hardcover))
9780198777915 ((hardcover))
0198777922 ((paperback))
9780198777922 ((paperback))
LCCN
2016945126
OCLC
963792531
Statement on language in description
Princeton University Library aims to describe library materials in a manner that is respectful to the individuals and communities who create, use, and are represented in the collections we manage.
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Science without numbers / Hartry Field.
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