Bad company generalized

Gabriel Uzquiano

pp. 331-347

in: Øystein Linnebo (ed), The bad company problem, Synthese 170 (3), 2009.

Abstract

The paper is concerned with the bad company problem as an instance of a more general difficulty in the philosophy of mathematics. The paper focuses on the prospects of stability as a necessary condition on acceptability. However, the conclusion of the paper is largely negative. As a solution to the bad company problem, stability would undermine the prospects of a neo-Fregean foundation for set theory, and, as a solution to the more general difficulty, it would impose an unreasonable constraint on mathematical practice.

Cited authors

Frege Gottlob