
Contents
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Abstract Discourse as Figurative Abstract Discourse as Figurative
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Paraphrasability Paraphrasability
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Impatience Impatience
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Translucency Translucency
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Insubstantiality Insubstantiality
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Indeterminacy Indeterminacy
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Silliness Silliness
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Expressiveness (Representationality) Expressiveness (Representationality)
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Irrelevance Irrelevance
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Disconnectedness Disconnectedness
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Availability (Apriority) Availability (Apriority)
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Objections to Figuralism Objections to Figuralism
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Concluding Remarks Concluding Remarks
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Cite
Abstract
Stephen Yablo’s figuralism assumes the customary criterion of ontological commitment but denies that mathematical sentences must be read in a prima facie way. Yablo argues that abstract object talk may be plausibly taken to be figurative language, employing existential metaphors for abstract objects. If we do not take abstract discourse in a literal way, then it may be regarded as true, though figurative. The parallels drawn by Yablo between figurative speech and Platonistic discourse are striking and many. His figuralism also does a good job of explaining why overly easy existence proofs fail. So long as one eschews a hermeneutic claim about how most mathematicians understand their discourse and offers a figurative interpretation as one reasonable way of construing such discourse, anti-realist figuralism cannot be gainsaid. Figuralism therefore presents itself as a different, viable alternative for the classical theist concerned to meet the challenge of Platonism to divine aseity.
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