Numbers as Cognitive Tools

This books offers a novel account of the nature of numbers firmly grounded inresults from numerical cognition and the philosophy of mathematics. Drawing onempirical data on the human experience of what we call "numbers," the authorshows that numbers do not exist as abstract objects, but that the idea that theydo is a useful cognitive tool. Contrary to the platonist view, according to whicharithmetic is true of a realm of abstract entities, the nominalistic accountpresented in this book shows arithmetic to be true of descriptions of structuralproperties of techniques such as counting and calculating procedures. This book isof interest to both philosophers and cognitive scientists who want to have adeeper understanding of what numbers are.