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    Carmelics

    A reasoning platform. Break down any belief into clear reasons, explore both sides, and weigh the evidence honestly.

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    LoyalLoyalJusticeJustice
    Made withinDC&Austin
    Statements
    321,452
    Perspectives
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    Topics
    42
    Home/Original/inverse
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    Inverse View

    It is not the case that Sensory experience appears to play an evidential role in coming to know some mathematical facts.

    ?Set your confidence on the premises below to see your aggregate.

    Reasons For

    2 perspectives
    Reason for 1 of 2
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    • 1.Mathematical truths are necessary truths, and sensory experience, which is contingent, cannot justify belief in what is necessarily the case.
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    • 2.What sensory experience provides is at best a heuristic trigger for a priori insight, not genuine evidential warrant for the mathematical proposition itself.
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    • 3.Frege and the logicist tradition establish that the justificatory ground of arithmetic lies in logical laws, not empirical observation.
      ?

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    Reason for 2 of 2
    ?
    • 1.The 'non-merely-enabling' distinction collapses under scrutiny: causal facilitation of belief formation is not equivalent to epistemic justification of belief content.
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      Think about whether this reason is strong or weak

    • 2.Benacerraf's epistemological challenge shows that any causal account of mathematical knowledge faces insuperable problems given the acausal nature of mathematical objects.
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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
    ?
    • 1.Setting aside testimony-based knowledge, there remain cases where sensory experience seems to justify belief in a mathematical fact.
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    • 2.Visual experience has been shown (in earlier sections of the text) to play non-merely-enabling roles in mathematical proof and propositional discovery.
      ?

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