[FOM] Fictionalism About Mathematics

[Colin McLarty]

On Sun, Mar 11, 2012 at 11:37 AM, Alan Weir <Alan.Weir at glasgow.ac.uk> wrote:

> But fictionalism is different, more irenic, at any rate as I (as a
> non-fictionalist) understand it. The fictionalist will usually say that it
> is correct to affirm the existence of twin primes, incorrect to deny that.
> So it is not obvious that the fictionalist clashes with the practice of the
> jobbing mathematician (and that's how I think lots of fictionalists want
> it.)

That's how i see it (also not a fictionalist), and this is the line
Maddy takes on fictionalism in her book Defending the Axioms.  Since
non-clashing with practice is her chief concern, she is not exactly a
non-fictionalist though it s not the idiom she most prefers.

colin