-
476Plural quantification exposedNoûs 37 (1). 2003.This paper criticizes George Boolos's famous use of plural quantification to argue that monadic second-order logic is pure logic. I deny that plural quantification qualifies as pure logic and express serious misgivings about its alleged ontological innocence. My argument is based on an examination of what is involved in our understanding of the impredicative plural comprehension schema.
-
356On Witness-Discernibility of Elementary ParticlesErkenntnis 78 (5): 1133-1142. 2013.In the context of discussions about the nature of ‘identical particles’ and the status of Leibniz’s Principle of the Identity of Indiscernibles in Quantum Mechanics, a novel kind of physical discernibility has recently been proposed, which we call witness-discernibility. We inquire into how witness-discernibility relates to known kinds of discernibility. Our conclusion will be that for a wide variety of cases, including the intended quantum-mechanical ones, witness-discernibility collapses exten…Read more
-
59Frege's context principle and reference to natural numbersIn Sten Lindstr©œm, Erik Palmgren, Krister Segerberg & Viggo Stoltenberg-Hansen (eds.), logicism, intuitionism, and formalism - What has become of them?, Springer. 2008.Frege proposed that his Context Principle—which says that a word has meaning only in the context of a proposition—can be used to explain reference, both in general and to mathematical objects in particular. I develop a version of this proposal and outline answers to some important challenges that the resulting account of reference faces. Then I show how this account can be applied to arithmetic to yield an explanation of our reference to the natural numbers and of their metaphysical status.
Oslo, Norway
Areas of Specialization
3 more
| Science, Logic, and Mathematics |
| Logic and Philosophy of Logic |
| Philosophy of Mathematics |
| Metaphysics |
| Ontology |
| Metaontology |
| Modality |
| Gottlob Frege |
Areas of Interest
10 more
PhilPapers Editorships
| Philosophy of Mathematics |