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Philosophia Mathematica Advance Access originally published online on September 17, 2008
Philosophia Mathematica 2009 17(2):131-162; doi:10.1093/philmat/nkn019
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© The Author [2008]. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Fictionalism, Theft, and the Story of Mathematics{dagger}

Mark Balaguer*

* Department of Philosophy, California State University, Los Angeles, 5151 State University Drive, Los Angeles, California 90032-8114 U.S.A. mbalagu{at}calstatela.edu

This paper develops a novel version of mathematical fictionalism and defends it against three objections or worries, viz., (i) an objection based on the fact that there are obvious disanalogies between mathematics and fiction; (ii) a worry about whether fictionalism is consistent with the fact that certain mathematical sentences are objectively correct whereas others are incorrect; and (iii) a recent objection due to John Burgess concerning "hermeneuticism" and "revolutionism".

{dagger} I would like to thank Gideon Rosen and Mary Leng for some very helpful feedback on previous versions of this paper. In addition, an earlier version of the paper was read at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and I would like to thank the members of the audience for helpful comments.


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