Can one be a fictionalist and a platonist at the same time? Lessons from Leibniz
Drawing on Leibniz’ thinking, this paper advocates two claims. Firstly, a continuous path can be drawn from the use of fictions inside mathematics, a widespread practice in the 16th and 17th centuries, to the use of mathematical entities as fictions outside mathematics (i.e. when it comes to employi...
保存先:
| 出版年: | URI:https://journals.openedition.org/noesis, |
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| 第一著者: | |
| フォーマット: | Article ou chapitre numérique |
| 言語: | Anglais |
| 出版事項: |
Noesis
2024
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| 主題: | |
| オンライン･アクセス: | Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM |
| 要約: | Drawing on Leibniz’ thinking, this paper advocates two claims. Firstly, a continuous path can be drawn from the use of fictions inside mathematics, a widespread practice in the 16th and 17th centuries, to the use of mathematical entities as fictions outside mathematics (i.e. when it comes to employing them for describing the natural world). In the first case, fictitious entities are contrasted to other mathematical entities posited as “real”; in the second, all mathematical entities can be said to be fictitious compared to “real” things, taken in the sense of “existing in the natural world”. Secondly, I will show why the path drawn in the first section allows one –and even requires one if we follow Leibniz– to be both a fictionalist and a Platonist at the same time. |
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