Course Descriptions

This will be an introductory graduate seminar in philosophy of mathematics.  No background in either mathematics or logic is necessary.  About half the course will be a survey of traditional questions about the epistemology and metaphysics of mathematics (e.g., how can we have knowledge of mathematical entities if they are abstract and thus causally isolated from us?).  In this half we will briefly cover some older views (Plato, Kant, Mill), then Frege's logicism, formalism, and (briefly) intuitionism, and finally some newer views such as neoFregeanism and structuralism.  In the second half of the course we will cover some topics of contemporary interest, focusing on the borderline between philosophy of mathematics and metaphysics.