Mathematics, science and ontology (Q1182182)

The author attempts to explain how knowledge of mathematical objects is possible, to prove that, as J. S. Mill suggested, mathematics is essentially a natural science, in fact ``the most general inductive science we have'', while agreeing with G. Frege (who trounced Mill's view in his Grundlagen der Arithmetik) that ``mathematics provides the laws of the laws of nature''. He reconciles Mill's and Frege's views by arguing that ``all objects are abstract objects'' (an argument derived from Quine) and hence there is no essential difference between the knowledge of abstract objects and the knowledge of concrete objects. Therefore, there is no epistemological problem that is specific to mathematics, and no Platonism is involved in this solution. The author supports ``the extravagant claim'' that ``all objects are abstract objects'' by arguing that abstract objects are incompletely described physical objects ``if the incompleteness in the description does not hamper its utility in explanation and prediction'' and that ``abstract objects become physical when we observe them''. On the other hand, physical objects (and, ``if physics describes all that there is'', all objects are physical objects) are found to be ``abstract'' for two reasons: 1. ``contemporary physics say so''; 2. there is an ``isomorphism from the actual universe, as it exists over time, to a four-dimensional Euclidean space.'' The paper ends with the author acknowledging that the view that mathematics is ``quasi-empirical'' comes when looking at mathematics ``from afar'', and with the discussion of some possible differences arising when looking ``from close up'' at the activity of mathematicians.