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    Carmelics

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    LoyalLoyalJusticeJustice
    Made withinDC&Austin
    Statements
    321,452
    Perspectives
    108,905
    Topics
    42
    Home/Original/inverse
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    Inverse View

    It is not the case that The platonist/fictionalist semantic theory is better than other semantic theories of mathematical discourse

    ?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.Speaker intentions are not decisive for semantic theory, since competent speakers routinely have no determinate intentions about the ontological commitments of their utterances.
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    • 2.Wittgenstein's rule-following considerations show that meaning is grounded in public linguistic practice and use, not in speakers' mental states or intentions.
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    • 3.A use-based semantic theory can accommodate mathematical discourse without positing abstract objects or fictional surrogates, making the platonist/fictionalist framework theoretically unnecessary.
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    Reason for 2 of 2
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    • 1.Hellman's modal structuralism provides face-value readings of mathematical claims as truths about possible structures rather than abstract objects, satisfying the same data about speaker intentions.
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    • 2.If a viable alternative theory matches the platonist/fictionalist account's consistency with speaker-intention data, then P4's claim that it is the *only* such theory is demonstrably false.
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    • 3.The existence of multiple intention-consistent semantic theories defeats the argument's uniqueness claim without requiring rejection of any individual datum about mathematical practice.
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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
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    • 1.Ordinary mathematical claims are best interpreted at face value as making claims about objects, because typical mathematicians do not have positive intentions to be speaking nonliterally
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    • 2.There are features of the intentions of typical mathematicians inconsistent with the idea that mathematical utterances are about physical or mental objects
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    • 3.There is nothing in the intentions of typical mathematicians inconsistent with the idea that mathematical sentences are about abstract objects
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    Strongest counterpoint
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