Methods, Goals and Metaphysics in Contemporary Set Theory

Abstract

This thesis confronts Penelope Maddy's Second Philosophical study of set theory with a philosophical analysis of a part of contemporary set-theoretic practice in order to argue for three features we should demand of our philosophical programmes to study mathematics. In chapter 1, I argue that the identification of such features is a pressing philosophical issue. Chapter 2 presents those parts of the discursive reality the set theorists are currently in which are relevant to my philosophical investigation of set-theoretic practice. In chapter 3, I present Maddy's Second Philosophical programme and her analysis of set-theoretic practice. In chapters 4 and 5, I philosophically investigate contemporary set-theoretic practice. I show that some set theorists are having a debate about the metaphysical status of their discipline{ the pluralism/non-pluralism debate{ and argue that the metaphysical views of some set theorists stand in a reciprocal relationship with the way they practice set theory. As I will show in chapter 6, these two stories are disharmonious with Maddy's Second Philosophical account of set theory. I will use this disharmony to argue for three features that our philosophical programmes to study mathematics should have: they should provide an anthropology of mathematical goals; they should account for the fact that mathematical practices can be metaphysically laden; they should provide us with the means to study contemporary mathematical practices.