Abstract
Nominalism is the view that, despite appearances, there are no mathematical entities. The ways that nominalism is both compatible with there being mathematical truths and falsehoods, and compatible with mathematical truths being valuable in scientific applications are explored in this paper. Some of the purely psychological reasons for why nominalism is so hard to believe in will also be discussed.
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© 2015 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
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Azzouni, J. (2015). Nominalism, the nonexistence of mathematical objects. In: Davis, E., Davis, P. (eds) Mathematics, Substance and Surmise. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-21473-3_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-21473-3_7
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-21472-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-21473-3
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