Philosophy of Mathematics and Ontological Commitment

2000

This paper concerns Quine's classification of philosophies of mathematics as sketched in "On what there is" and offers a new reading of Quine's view. In his famous paper Quine defines three positions: Realism, Conceptualism, and Nominalism. Each of them, he says, has its modern expression, respectively, in Logicism, Intuitionism, and Formalism. According to Quine these foundational positions can be accepted or rejected on a clear and objective basis, according to their distinctive ontological commitments. Consistent with his own criterion for ontological commitment (buttressed by his view on impredicative definitions), Quine adopts the Realist (or the Platonist) position in mathematics. Lat…