The Quine-Putnam indispensability argument urges us to place mathematical entities on the same ontological footing as (other) theoretical entities of empirical science. Recently this argument has attracted much criticism, and in this paper I address one criticism due to Elliott Sober. Sober argues that mathematical theories cannot share the empirical support accrued by our best scientific theories, since mathematical propositions are not being tested in the same way as the clearly empirical propositions of science. In this paper I defend the Quine-Putnam argument against Sober's objections. © 1999 Kluwer Academic Publishers.

Item Type:	Refereed Article
Research Division:	Philosophy and Religious Studies
Research Group:	Philosophy
Research Field:	Epistemology
Objective Division:	Expanding Knowledge
Objective Group:	Expanding knowledge
Objective Field:	Expanding knowledge in philosophy and religious studies
UTAS Author:	Colyvan, M (Dr Mark Colyvan)
ID Code:	16985
Year Published:	1999
Deposited By:	Philosophy
Deposited On:	1999-08-01
Last Modified:	2011-08-05
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