Philosophy of Physics Seminar (Thursday - Week 8, TT25)

Abstract: As noted by Mark Steiner, 'To an unappreciated degree, the history of Western Philosophy is the history of attempts to understand why Mathematics is applicable to Nature, despite apparently good reasons to believe that it should not be.’ I survey these attempts and sharpen the topic to mathematical physics, including a definition and conceptualization thereof.  This will take us from Aristotle to Brandom, involving the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of science, and even the philosophy of language, which have to be tuned towards each other in order to succeed. The key to this is Inferentialism.