Search results for "Lakatos"
showing 3 items of 3 documents
For a Philosophy of Mathematical Practice
2010
It is a fact that of the logicist, the intuitionist, and Hilbert's programmes, the classical programmes set up to establish mathematics on safe foundations, some have failed, whereas others have long since lost their propulsive force. Two of the consequences of the crisis of the classical programmes in the foundations of mathematics were: a widespread scepticism towards the possibility of establishing the certainty of mathematical methods, and a new attention paid to mathematical practice. The main aim of this article is that of individuating some directions of research along which to develop a tenable philosophy of mathematical practice.
MATHEMATICS AS A QUASI-EMPIRICAL SCIENCE
2006
The present paper aims at showing that there are times when set theoretical knowledge increases in a non-cumulative way. In other words, what we call ‘set theory’ is not one theory which grows by simple addition of a theorem after the other, but a finite sequence of theories T1, ..., T n in which Ti+1, for 1 ≤ i < n, supersedes T i . This thesis has a great philosophical significance because it implies that there is a sense in which mathematical theories, like the theories belonging to the empirical sciences, are fallible and that, consequently, mathematical knowledge has a quasi-empirical nature. The way I have chosen to provide evidence in favour of the correctness of the main thesis of t…