Mathematics As a Science of Patterns
By Michael D. Resnik
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA | 2000 | 304 Pages | ISBN: 0198250142 | PDF | 26.52 MB

This book expounds a system of ideas about the nature of mathematics which Michael Resnik has been elaborating for a number of years. In calling mathematics a science he implies that it has a factual subject-matter and that mathematical knowledge is on a par with other scientific knowledge; in calling it a science of patterns he expresses his commitment to a structuralist philosophy ofmathematics. He links this to a defense of realism about the metaphysics of mathematics--the view that mathematics is about things that really exist.