CFP: The Emergence of Structuralism and Fomalism

Submission deadline: April 30, 2016

Conference date(s):
June 24, 2016 - June 26, 2016

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Conference Venue:

Charles University, Prague
Prague, Czech Republic

Topic areas

Details

Our conference will focus on how the nature of mathematics is regarded by representatives of formalism and structuralism. On the one hand, these two currents have much in common (they both agree that mathematics is not intuitive). On the other hand, they differ precisely in how they approach the problem whether mathematics does or does not have subject matter. Formalists reduce mathematics to mere manipulation with signs, thereby giving rise to the appearance that on their view mathematics cannot have any subject matter, while many structuralists admit objective grounding of mathematics and thereby return to the traditional theoretical conception of science.

We divide the problems we wish to address at the conference into historical ones and systematic ones.  In the first thematic area we will ask what earlier trends formalism and structuralism follow up on, how these current were constituted, and how they eventually became respected philosophical positions. In the second area we will welcome reflections addressing the relationship between formalism and structuralism (similarities and dissimilarities), and further also solutions to some contemporary problems associated with these two approaches.

Supporting material

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