The happy formalist (Q752675)

The author sees a renaissance and a genuinely new approach in the philosophy of mathematics. He considered himself a formalist, but often did not recognize his own beliefs in the characterizations of formalism given by many writers hard on it. He starts with a cursory summary of the principal philosophies of mathematics: platonism, intuitionism, logicism, quasi-empiricism. Discussing the critics of formalism he points out that he draws a distinction between ``imbedded'' and ``modelled''. A model is only a reflection of reality. When he says that a particular area of mathematics can be imbedded in a formal system, he means that there is a system such that the theorems of that system are exactly the theorems of the given area. Here the formal system consists of a formal language, a collection of statements (the axioms of the system) and a system of inference. The formalist thesis is simply that all of pure mathematics can be imbedded in formal systems. From this point of view such topics are discussed as mathematical practice, epistemology, aesthetics, logic, pedagogy, as well as games, incompleteness theorem, neoformalism and formalism in the large. Let us cite. ``Mathematical practice is not mathematics (no more than cutting up pigs is biology, or literary criticism is poetry).'' ``In the eyes of a formalist, all the various philosophies are compatible. Formalism wants to say what mathematics is. Platonism wants to tell us when it is true. Intuitionism wants to tell us when it is good. Logicism wants to tell us where it comes from, and quasi-empiricism wants to tell us what it means to do it. The trouble begins when each of these (except formalism) claims exclusivity.''