John Burgess is the author of a rich and creative body of work which seeks to defend classical logic and mathematics through counter-criticism of their nominalist, intuitionist, relevantist, and other critics. This selection of his essays, which spans twenty-five years, addresses key topics including nominalism, neo-logicism, intuitionism, modal logic, analyticity, and translation. An introduction sets the essays in context and offers a retrospective appraisal of their aims. The volume will be of interest to a wide range of readers across philosophy of mathematics, logic, and philosophy of language.
John P. Burgess is Professor in the Department of Philosophy, Princeton University. He is co-author of A Subject With No Object with Gideon Rosen (1997) and Computability and Logic, 4th Edition with George S. Boolos and Richard C. Jeffrey (2002).
Introduction; Part I. Mathematics: 1. Numbers and ideas; 2. Why I am not a nominalist; 3. Mathematics and Bleak House; 4. Quine, analyticity, and philosophy of mathematics; 5. Being explained away; 6. E pluribus unum; 7. Logicism: a new look; Part II. Models, Modality, and More: 8. Tarski's tort; 9. Which modal logic is the right one?; 10. Can truth out?; 11. Quinus ab omni noevo vindicatus; 12. Translating names; 13. Relevance: a fallacy?; 14. Dummett's case for intuitionism.