A Burgessian critique of nominalistic tendencies in contemporary mathematics and its historiography

DOI10.1007/S10699-011-9223-1zbMATH Open1283.03006OpenAlexW2076162902WikidataQ55871461 ScholiaQ55871461MaRDI QIDQ2391944FDOQ2391944

Authors: Karin U. Katz, Mikhail G. Katz 

Publication date: 5 August 2013

Published in: Foundations of Science (Search for Journal in Brave)

Abstract: We analyze the developments in mathematical rigor from the viewpoint of a Burgessian critique of nominalistic reconstructions. We apply such a critique to the reconstruction of infinitesimal analysis accomplished through the efforts of Cantor, Dedekind, and Weierstrass; to the reconstruction of Cauchy's foundational work associated with the work of Boyer and Grabiner; and to Bishop's constructivist reconstruction of classical analysis. We examine the effects of a nominalist disposition on historiography, teaching, and research.

Full work available at URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/1104.0375

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zbMATH Keywords

continuitycompletenessCauchyWeierstrassinfinitesimalconstructivismepsilonticsFelix Kleinnon-ArchimedeanAbraham RobinsonnominalismDedekindCantorSimon Stevinlaw of excluded middleDu Bois-ReymondBurgessmathematical rigoradequalityErrett BishopArchimedean continuumBernoullian continuumFermat-Robinson standard partnominalistic reconstructionLeibniz-Łoś transfer principle

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Philosophy of mathematics (00A30) History of mathematical logic and foundations (03-03) Logic in the philosophy of science (03A10) History of real functions (26-03) Constructive and recursive analysis (03F60) Historiography (01A85)

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• Controversies in the foundations of analysis: comments on Schubring's \textit{Conflicts}
• Leibniz's infinitesimals: their fictionality, their modern implementations, and their foes from Berkeley to Russell and beyond
• The Burgess-Rosen critique of nominalistic reconstructions
• Toward a clarity of the extreme value theorem
• Small oscillations of the pendulum, Euler's method, and adequality
• Almost equal: the method of adequality from Diophantus to Fermat and beyond
• Proofs and retributions, or: why Sarah can't take limits
• Stevin numbers and reality
• A Cauchy-Dirac delta function
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• An integer construction of infinitesimals: toward a theory of eudoxus hyperreals
• Cauchy's continuum
• A non-standard analysis of a cultural icon: the case of Paul Halmos

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