Fictionalism is claimed to allow its advocates to do mathematics without having to commit thereby to the existence of abstract entities. Nevertheless, fictionalism is subject to a charge that has not received enough attention yet, namely, the nominalistic impurity objection. According to this objection, the fictionalist's tenets surreptitiously involve purported reference to abstracta and quantification over abstracta, and, consequently, the fictionalist is inadvertently committed to precisely those entities, which she wanted to reject. In this paper, I argue that the nominalistic impurity objection remains undefeated, and constitutes, for the fictionalist, a significant threat that demands serious attention.
Abstract In the concluding chapter of Die Philosophie des Als Ob, Vaihinger offers an interpretation of Nietzsche’s epistemology in terms of his own fictionalism. Here, I suggest that Vaihinger’s interpretation is close to being correct, and that we still have much to learn from it. In particular, his reading promises...
Frances Egan's Deflating mental representation gives a forceful defence of deflationism about mental representation. Deflationism is a form of selective realism: It is realist about vehicles of mental representation, but not contents. In this commentary, I will argue that deflationism is unstable. Ultimately, despite i...
This article examines the connection between Antonio Rosmini’s thought and the concept of spontaneous order developed by Friedrich A. Hayek. It argues that Rosmini’s political and economic liberalism is internally bound to his theistic and providential metaphysics, and that the middle term between the two is an “imperf...
Valentino Pellegrino· Journal of Markets & Mor...· 0 citations
In this essay, the concepts of discretion and vulgarity are revisited, drawing on extensive bibliography related to courtly life. It is suggested that aspects inherent to libertine rationality – composed of skeptical, empiricist, and relativist types – combined with the conduct of the discreet individual, for whom pres...
What is on the other side of the agential cut is not separate from us-agential separability is not individuation.Ethics is therefore not about right response to a radically exterior/ized other, but about responsibility and accountability for the lively relationalities of becoming of which we are a part.-KarenBarad, Mee...
Janneke Adema· Open Access Reader· 0 citations
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