Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy (MCMP)
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CfP: Foundations of Mathematical Structuralism

12-14 October 2016

08.04.2016

Idea and Motivation

In the course of the last century, different general frameworks for the foundations of mathematics have been investigated. The orthodox approach to foundations interprets mathematics in the universe of sets. More recently, however, there have been other developments that call into question the whole method of set theory as a foundational discipline. Category-theoretic methods that focus on structural relationships and structure-preserving mappings between mathematical objects, rather than on the objects themselves, have been in play since the early 1960s. But in the last few years they have found clarification and expression through the development of homotopy type theory. This represents a fascinating development in the philosophy of mathematics, where category-theoretic structural methods are combined with type theory to produce a foundation that accounts for the structural aspects of mathematical practice. We are now at a point where the notion of mathematical structure can be elucidated more clearly and its role in the foundations of mathematics can be explored more fruitfully.

The main objective of the conference is to reevaluate the different perspectives on mathematical structuralism in the foundations of mathematics and in mathematical practice. To do this, the conference will explore the following research questions: Does mathematical structuralism offer a philosophically viable foundation for modern mathematics? What role do key notions such as structural abstraction, invariance, dependence, or structural identity play in the different theories of structuralism? To what degree does mathematical structuralism as a philosophical position describe actual mathematical practice? Does category theory or homotopy type theory provide a fully structural account for mathematics?

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