Philosophy of mathematics Selected readings SECOND EDITION Edited by Paul Benacerraf Hilary Putnam Cambridge University Press | €ambridge” + London New York New Rochelle Melbbarhe® sydneyssendeneee reer Yay YDB EIEY : Pt yh res Sto he Ue of Came Te Peas hi Sues eo eT 2 ssid Pan se Pa NS a Tre Fs ation © Pent al, ne 1964 ‘Second dion © Cambridge Univer Mes 1983 Fat blithe by Price Hal 1964 Second efiton pis by Cambie Uy Pres 1983 Pind in be Unie Sates of Amer ‘ibray of Conaress Cataloging in Pubcon Dae Philosophy of mathenati, Biography |. Matemates = Paosophy. 1 Bena, Pal Pasa lay OnR.erat 1983 "Si0n 82. 28287 ISBN 0 2127796 had eves ISBN 0 521 oes X apstack phe 430 téir Contents Preface 0 the second edition vi Incroduetion 1 Part I. The foundations of mathematics ‘Symposium on the foundations of mathematics 1. The logicist foundations of mathematics 2. The intuitionist foundations of mathematics 3. The formalist foundations of mathematics Disputation Intuitionism and form Consciousness, philosophy, and mathematics ‘The philosophical basis of int ‘The concept of number Selections from Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy (On the infinite Remarks on the definition and nature of mathematics Hilber’s programme Part I The existence of mathematical objects Empiricism, semantics, and ontology nist Logie 41 4 2 61 7 130 160 183 241Contents On platonism ‘What numbers could not be Mathematics without foundations ‘mathematics art 111. Mathematical ath ‘The a priori “Truth by convention W.¥.QUINE Carnap and lopieal truth (On the nature of mathematica tuth (On the nature of mathematical reasoning Mathematical truth Models and reality Part IV. The concept of set Russell's mathematical logic KURT GOEL What is Cantor's continuum problem? ‘The iterative concept of set ‘What isthe iterative conception of set? ‘The concept of set Bibliography — ST “ 258 2m ais 39 355 37 394 403 aa ar 470 486 soa 530 Preface to the second edition Even a casual comparison of the table of contents of the present collection with that of is predecessor will reveal significant differences ax ‘well as much overlap. By and large, the present selection isthe product of ‘two Forces (a) comments from users ofthe frst edition (and from poten- ‘ial users of the second) and (b) our own sense of the direction the field thas taken during the past two decades, ‘We are grateful to our many friends and colleagues, too numerous 10 thank individually, who have commented on what they found useful and less than useful in our frst effort aswell as on what they felt it would be ‘good to have available in one volume. Their perspective has been invalu able, though the responsibility for our selections remains largely our own, [Needless to say, we would have iked in & way to reise the first edi- tion and simply add a second, companion, volume. But we are deterred by the prohibitive cost (othe user) ofthe {wo volumes. Hence the inevi table compromise: A selection was made, omitting several things to make 00m for new ones, In a number of cases (most notably the Wittgenstein ‘material and “"Two Dogmas of Empiricism”), the (present availability ‘of most ofthe material enabled us to omit it with less ofa sense of loss [Not so with the rest. The selection of new material was even more diff- cult, ax these years have been particularly fecund, both in relevant semi technical results and in philosophical explorations. ‘As before, we limited our selections to those we fet would be accesible to the philosophically educated reader with enough background in logic {o understand an exposition of some ofthe results of twentith-century loge. (An important example the independence of Cantor's Continuum Hypothesis.) Ina similar vein, we tried also to narrow the range of philo- sophical issues discussed in the selection to ones that could mast easily be recognized as concerning the philosophy of mathematics. Both of these admittedly loose principles served as guidelines only; but any tempt to ‘observe them inevitably constrains the range of literature availabe for consideration. Except for these rules of thumb, in the end, we followed rho overarching principle other than that of making a selection of items that, in our judgment, would make interesting reading when taken together