Abstract
Putnam has famously offered a sketch of a mathematics without foundations, existing in two equivalent descriptions, set-theoretic and modal-logical. Here his proposal is critically examined, with attention to difficulties surrounding both the modal-logical description itself and especially the notion of equivalence of descriptions.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Benacerraf, P., & Putnam, H. (Eds.). (1964). Philosophy of mathematics: Selected readings (1st ed.). Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall.
Benacerraf, P., & Putnam, H. (Eds.). (1983). Philosophy of mathematics: Selected readings (2nd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Burgess, J. P., & Rosen, G. (1997). A subject with no object. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Davis, M., Putnam, H., & Robinson, J. (1961). The decision problem for exponential diophantine equations. Annals of Mathematics, 74, 425–436.
Hellman, G. (1989). Mathematics without numbers. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kreisel, G. (1972). Review of Putnam 1967b. Journal of Symbolic Logic, 37, 402–404.
Palmer, F. R. (2001). Mood and modality (2nd ed.). In Cambridge textbooks in linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Putnam, H. (1967a). The thesis that mathematics is logic. In R. Schoenman (Ed.), Bertrand Russell: Philosopher of the century (pp. 273–303). London: Allen and Unwin.
Putnam, H. (1967b). Mathematics without foundations. Journal of Philosophy, 64, 1–22. (Reprinted in Benacerraf and Putnam, 295–313, 1983).
Putnam, H. (1971). Philosophy of logic. New York: Harper and Row.
Putnam, H. (1980). Models and reality. Journal of Symbolic Logic, 45, 464–482. (Reprinted in Benacerraf and Putnam, 421–445, 1983).
Putnam, H. (2002). Is analytic philosophy a good thing? Why I am ambivalent. Lecture at the Einstein Forum: Die Zukunft der Analytischen Philosophie [The Future of Analytic Philosophy], Potsdam.
Putnam, H. (2012). Indispensability arguments in the philosophy of mathematics. In M. De Caro & D. Macarthur (Eds.), Chapter 9 of philosophy in an age of science: Physics, mathematics, and skepticism (pp. 181–201). Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Burgess, J.P. (2018). Putnam on Foundations: Models, Modals, Muddles. In: Hellman, G., Cook, R. (eds) Hilary Putnam on Logic and Mathematics. Outstanding Contributions to Logic, vol 9. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96274-0_9
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96274-0_9
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-96273-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-96274-0
eBook Packages: Mathematics and StatisticsMathematics and Statistics (R0)