The Limits of Abstraction (Paperback)

What is abstraction? To what extent can it account for the existence and identity of abstract objects? And to what extent can it be used as a foundation for mathematics? Kit Fine provides rigorous and systematic answers to these questions along the lines proposed by Frege, in a book concerned both with the technical development of the subject and with its philosophical underpinnings.
Fine proposes an account of what it is for a principle of abstraction to be acceptable, and these acceptable principles are exactly characterized. A formal theory of abstraction is developed and shown to be capable of providing a foundation for both arithmetic and analysis. Fine argues that the usual attempts to see principles of abstraction as forms of stipulative definition have been largely unsuccessful but there may be other, more promising, ways of vindicating the various forms of contextual definition.
The Limits of Abstraction breaks new ground both technically and philosophically, and will be essential reading for all who work on the philosophy of mathematics.

General

Imprint:	Oxford UniversityPress
Country of origin:	United Kingdom
Release date:	May 2008
First published:	July 2008
Authors:	Kit Fine
Dimensions:	218 x 140 x 13mm (L x W x T)
Format:	Paperback
Pages:	214
ISBN-13:	978-0-19-953363-3
Categories:	Books > Science & Mathematics > Mathematics > Philosophy of mathematics Books > Humanities > Philosophy > Western philosophy > Modern Western philosophy, c 1600 to the present > General Books > Philosophy > Western philosophy > Modern Western philosophy, c 1600 to the present > General
LSN:	0-19-953363-6
Barcode:	9780199533633

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