 One version of the third strategy, implicit in the writings of Quine (1951, section 6) and developed by Steiner (1975, chapter four, especially section IV) and Resnik (1997, chapter 7), is to argue that we have good reason to believe that our mathematical theories are true, even though we don't have any contact with mathematical objects, because (a) these theories are embedded in our empirical theories, and (b) these empirical theories (including their mathematical parts) have been confirmed by empirical evidence, and so (c) we have empirical evidence for believing that our mathematical theories are true and, hence, that abstract mathematical objects exist. Notice that this view involves the controversial thesis that confirmation is holistic, i.e., that entire theories are confirmed by pieces of evidence that seem to confirm only parts of theories. One might doubt that confirmation is holistic in this way (see, e.g., Sober (1993), Maddy (1992), and Balaguer (1998a)). Moreover, even if one grants that confirmation is holistic, one might worry that this view leaves unexplained the fact that mathematicians are capable of acquiring knowledge of their theories before these theories are applied in empirical science.