Philosophy of Mathematics seminar

Zeynep Soysal, Rochester

Fixing Mathematical Content

This talk is about the “method of implicit definitions” for fixing mathematical content. I will develop a version of this method on which mathematical expressions of various mathematical fields are all defined jointly, and partly in terms of informal expressions of non-mathematical language. I will then defend this view against two of the most serious objections against the method of implicit definitions, and, along the way, explain some important consequences of my view for some central epistemological and metaphysical questions about mathematics.