What Is Math?
<i>Platonism, as mathematician Brian Davies has put it, “has more in common with mystical religions than it does with modern science.” The fear is that if mathematicians give Plato an inch, he’ll take a mile. If the truth of mathematical statements can be confirmed just by thinking about them, then why not ethical problems, or even religious questions? Why bother with empiricism at all?</i><p>How does one find ethical or religious problems and questions in pure logic? Logic is fundamental and proven to be able to apply in reality. Ethics and religion operate over multiple levels of qualitative transitions and cannot(?) be fundamental.<p><i>Massimo Pigliucci, a philosopher at the City University of New York, was initially attracted to Platonism—but has since come to see it as problematic. If something doesn’t have a physical existence, he asks, then what kind of existence could it possibly have? “If one ‘goes Platonic’ with math,” writes Pigliucci, empiricism “goes out the window.” (If the proof of the Pythagorean theorem exists outside of space and time, why not the “golden rule,” or even the divinity of Jesus Christ?)</i><p>Because DoJC exists outside of space and time in minds of believers? It just doesn&#x27;t have a physical counterpart and does barely have any logic to evolve&#x2F;deduct from it, for us to predict events based on DoJC as if it was applicable to parts of reality. It is understandable how someone could ask &quot;stupid&quot; (not really) questions about maths, but when philosophers start to draw parallels, it is easy to lose track of what they are even talking about. Can someone explain what they meant exactly?