Related papers: Naive Philosophical Foundations
Eugene Wigner famously argued for the "unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics" for describing physics and other natural sciences in his 1960 essay. That essay has now led to some 55 years of (sometimes anguished) soul searching ---…
The ability to read, write, and speak mathematics is critical to students becoming comfortable with statistical models and skills. Faster development of those skills may act as encouragement to further engage with the discipline. Vocabulary…
Classical mathematics (involving such notions as infinitely small/large and continuity) is usually treated as fundamental while finite mathematics is treated as inferior which is used only in special applications. We first argue that the…
A sketch of some of the fundamental notions related to the nature of knowledge is offered, with special focus on the role of mathematics and my own opinions. No single idea exposed here is entirely original; indeed, this topic has been…
This paper examines various methods and ideas for humanizing mathematics. The term 'humanizing mathematics' which includes elements of 'aesthetic mathematics' refers to approaches that emphasize the aesthetic, philosophical, and subjective…
This article supports the epistemological claim that sound human reasoning about ultimate knowledge is either foundational or circularly justified. In particular, questions which naturally arise in theology, philosophy, and related…
My purpose is to examine some concepts of mathematical logic, which have been studied by Carlo Cellucci. Today the aim of classical mathematical logic is not to guarantee the certainty of mathematics, but I will argue that logic can help us…
There are many scientific problems generated by the multiple and conflicting alternative definitions of linguistic recursion and human recursive processing that exist in the literature. The purpose of this article is to make available to…
Informal logic is a method of argument analysis which is complementary to that of formal logic, providing for the pragmatic treatment of features of argumentation which cannot be reduced to logical form. The central claim of this paper is…
The unique and beautiful character of certain mathematical results and proofs is often considered one of the most gratifying aspects of engaging with mathematics. We study whether this perception of mathematical arguments having an…
This paper establishes grounds for deeper exploration into the question of dual nature of mathematics as an abstract discipline and as a concrete science. It is argued, as one of the consequences of the discussion, that the division into…
Questions concerning origin of mathematical knowledge and roles of language and intuition (imagery) in mathematical thoughts are long standing and widely debated. By introspection, mathematicians usually have some beliefs regarding these…
Philosophy of science attempts to describe all parts of the scientific process in a general way in order to facilitate the description, execution and improvements of this process. So far, all proposed philosophies have only covered existing…
Abstraction logic is a new logic, serving as a foundation of mathematics. It combines features of both predicate logic and higher-order logic: abstraction logic can be viewed both as higher-order logic minus static types as well as…
The received Hilbert-style axiomatic foundations of mathematics has been designed by Hilbert and his followers as a tool for meta-theoretical research. Foundations of mathematics of this type fail to satisfactory perform more basic and more…
Matrix syntax is a formal model of syntactic relations in language. The purpose of this paper is to explain its mathematical foundations, for an audience with some formal background. We make an axiomatic presentation, motivating each axiom…
As David Berlinski writes (1997), the existence and nature of mathematics is a more compelling and far deeper problem than any of the problems raised by mathematics itself. Here we analyze the essence of mathematics making the main emphasis…
Discrete mathematics is the foundation of computer science. It focuses on concepts and reasoning methods that are studied using math notations. It has long been argued that discrete math is better taught with programming, which takes…
This paper has been withdrawn by the author. In this article I review W\"ust's recent handbook on mathematical physics from a philosophical standpoint. It emerges a structural approach to mathematics which evidences the utility of logic in…
A description of physical reality in which wholeness is the foundation is discussed along with the motivation for such an attempt. As a possible mathematical framework within which a physical theory based on wholeness may be expressed,…