Acknowledgments -- Contents -- Introduction -- Part I. Truth and Ontology -- 1 Why Empirically Indispensable Mathematical Doctrine and (Some) Scientific Law Must Be Taken as True: Preliminary Considerations -- 2 Circumventing Commitment to Truth despite Empirical Indispensability -- 3 Criteria for the Ontological Commitments of Discourse -- 4 Criteria for What Exists -- 5 Ontological Commitment and the Vernacular: Some Warnings -- Part II. Applied Mathematics and Its Posits -- 6 Posits and the Epistemic Burdens They Bear -- 7 Posits and Existence
8 Applying Mathematics: Two Models9 Applied Mathematics and Ontology -- Conclusion -- References -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- Q -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- Y -- Z
Summary
If we take mathematical statements to be true, must we also believe in the existence of abstract invisible mathematical objects? This text claims that the way to escape such a commitment is to accept true statements which are about objects that don't exist in any sense at all
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (pages 227-233) and index
