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Structuralism in philosophy of mathematics has largely focused on arithmetic, algebra, and basic analysis. Some have doubted whether distinctively structural working methods have any impact in other fields such as differential equations. We show narrowly construed structuralism as offered by Benacerraf has no practical role in differential equations. But Dedekind’s approach to the continuum already did not fit that narrow sense, and little of mathematics today does. We draw on one calculus textbook, one celebrated analysis textbook, and a monograph on the Navier–Stokes equation to show structural methods like Dedekind’s have long been central to differential equations, and have philosophically respectable ontology and epistemology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper defends a conceptualistic version of structuralism as the most convincing way of elaborating a philosophical understanding of structuralism in line with the classical tradition. The argument begins with a revision of the tradition of "conceptual mathematics", incarnated in key figures of the period 1850 to 1940 like Riemann, Dedekind, Hilbert or Noether, showing how it led to a structuralist methodology. Then the tension between the 'presuppositionless' approach of those authors, and the platonism of some recent versions of philosophical structuralism, is presented. In order to resolve this tension, we argue for the idea of 'logical objects' as a form of minimalist realism, again in the tradition of classical authors including Peirce and Cassirer, and we introduce the basic tenets of conceptual structuralism. The remainder of the paper is devoted to an open discussion of the assumptions behind conceptual structuralism, and—most importantly—an argument to show how the objectivity of mathematics can be explained from the adopted standpoint. This includes the idea that advanced mathematics builds on hypothetical assumptions (Riemann, Peirce, and others), which is presented and discussed in some detail. Finally, the ensuing notion of objectivity is interpreted as a form of particularly robust intersubjectivity, and it is distinguished from fictional or social ontology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Call a directed partially ordered cancellative divisibility monoid M a Riesz monoid if for all x , y 1 , y 2 ≥ 0 in M, x ≤ y 1 + y 2 ⇒ x = x 1 + x 2 where 0 ≤ x i ≤ y i . We explore the necessary and sufficient conditions under which a Riesz monoid M with M + = { x ≥ 0 ∣ x ∈ M } = M generates a Riesz group and indicate some applications. We call a directed p.o. monoid M Π -pre-Riesz if M + = M and for all x 1 , x 2 , ⋯ , x n ∈ M , glb (x 1 , x 2 , ⋯ , x n) = 0 or there is r ∈ Π such that 0 < r ≤ x 1 , x 2 , ⋯ , x n , for some subset Π of M. We explore examples of Π -pre-Riesz monoids of ∗ -ideals of different types. We show for instance that if M is the monoid of nonzero (integral) ideals of a Noetherian domain D and Π the set of invertible ideals, M is Π -pre-Riesz if and only D is a Dedekind domain. We also study factorization in pre-Riesz monoids of a certain type and link it with factorization theory of ideals in an integral domain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

'Mathematics is the science of the infinite, its goal the symbolic comprehension of the infinite with human, that is finite, means.' Along this line, in The Open World, Hermann Weyl contrasted the desire to make the infinite accessible through finite processes, which underlies any theoretical investigation of reality, with the intuitive feeling for the infinite 'peculiar to the Orient,' which remains 'indifferent to the concrete manifold of reality.' But a critical analysis may acknowledge a valuable dialectical opposition. Struggling to spell out the infinity of real numbers mathematicians come to see the active role of emptiness. Pondering over the essence of self-awareness, the Japanese philosopher Nishida Kitarō comes to see the 'place' where it abides as absolute nothingness. Thus, the two ways of seeing coalesce into a perspective in which infinity and nothingness mirror each other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Formalism in the philosophy of mathematics has taken a variety of forms and has been advocated for widely divergent reasons. In Sects. 1 and 2, I briefly introduce the major formalist doctrines of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. These are what I call empirico-semantic formalism (advocated by Heine), game formalism (advocated by Thomae) and instrumental formalism (advocated by Hilbert). After describing these views, I note some basic points of similarity and difference between them. In the remainder of the paper, I turn my attention to Hilbert's instrumental formalism. My primary aim there will be to develop its formalist elements more fully. These are, in the main, (i) its rejection of the axiom-centric focus of traditional model-construction approaches to consistency problems, (ii) its departure from the traditional understanding of the basic nature of proof and (iii) its distinctively descriptive or observational orientation with regard to the consistency problem for arithmetic. More specifically, I will highlight what I see as the salient points of connection between Hilbert's formalist attitude and his finitist standard for the consistency proof for arithmetic. I will also note what I see as a significant tension between Hilbert's observational approach to the consistency problem for arithmetic and his expressed hope that his solution of that problem would dispense with certain epistemological concerns regarding arithmetic once and for all. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a reading of the history of equivalence in mathematics. The paper has two main parts. The first part focuses on a relatively short historical period when the notion of equivalence is about to be decontextualized, but yet, has no commonly agreed-upon name. The method for this part is rather straightforward: following the clues left by the others for the 'first' modern use of equivalence. The second part focuses on a relatively long historical period when equivalence is experienced in context. The method for this part is to strip the ideas from their set-theoretic formulations and methodically examine the variations in the ways equivalence appears in some prominent historical texts. The paper reveals several critical differences in the conceptions of equivalence at different points in history that are at variance with the standard account of the mathematical notion of equivalence encompassing the concepts of equivalence relation and equivalence class. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We analyze the developments in mathematical rigor from the viewpoint of a Burgessian critique of nominalistic reconstructions. We apply such a critique to the reconstruction of infinitesimal analysis accomplished through the efforts of Cantor, Dedekind, and Weierstrass; to the reconstruction of Cauchy's foundational work associated with the work of Boyer and Grabiner; and to Bishop's constructivist reconstruction of classical analysis. We examine the effects of a nominalist disposition on historiography, teaching, and research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we introduce and study the rings of Gorenstein homological dimensions less than or equal to 1. We call these Gorenstein (semi)hereditary rings and call a particular subclass of these strongly Gorenstein (semi)hereditary rings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are two general questions which many views in the philosophy of mathematics can be seen as addressing: what are mathematical objects, and how do we have knowledge of them? Naturally, the answers given to these questions are linked, since whatever account we give of how we have knowledge of mathematical objects surely has to take into account what sorts of things we claim they are; conversely, whatever account we give of the nature of mathematical objects must be accompanied by a corresponding account of how it is that we acquire knowledge of those objects. The connection between these problems results in what is often called “Benacerraf’s Problem”, which is a dilemma that many philosophical views about mathematical objects face. It will be my goal here to present a view, attributed to Richard Dedekind, which approaches the initial questions in a different way than many other philosophical views do, and in doing so, avoids the dilemma given by Benacerraf’s problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article we give a modern interpretation of Kummer’s ideal numbers and show how they developed from Jacobi’s work on cyclotomy, in particular the methods for studying “Jacobi sums” which he presented in his lectures on number theory and cyclotomy in the winter semester 1836/37. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]