Talk: Alexander Paseau and Fabian Pregel (Oxford)

Title:

Deductivism: A New Appraisal

Abstract:

The topic of our talk is the philosophy of mathematics known as deductivism. Popular in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries, deductivism then fell out of favour before being reinvented as structuralism later in the 20^th century, a philosophy which in some form or another claims many adherents today. Surprisingly, given this history, there is little work devoted to deductivism, its history, its perceived failings, and the reasons structuralism supplanted it. The two most recent detailed studies we know of, by Michael Resnik and Rosemarie Rheinwald respectively, are from the 1980s.Our ambition in this talk is to offer an up-to-date and detailed appraisal of deductivism, in both its historical and philosophical aspects, that builds and improves on previous ones.