Philosophy of Mathematics Seminar
The Philosophy of Mathematics seminar covers topics beyond the philosophy of mathematics and logic, including applications of formal methods in philosophy more generally. Speakers come from different disciplines, such as philosophy, computer science, and mathematics. The content of the talks vary from highly technical to purely informal.
All are welcome to attend the seminar. Graduate and undergraduate students from all subject areas are especially welcome. It is perfectly acceptable to attend only selected talks.
If you’re not on the circulation list for announcements and would like to attend, write to Daniel Isaacson.
Philosophy of Mathematics Seminar Convenors: Daniel Isaacson and Beau Mount | Philosophy of Mathematics website
Michaelmas Term 2025 - Term Card
Past Terms
| Week 2 (5th May) | Marianna Antonutti Marfori (IHPST Paris) | Mathematical Naturalism and the Problem of Ontology |
| Week 4 (19th May) | Joel Hamkins (Notre Dame) | How we might have viewed the continuum hypothesis as a fundamental axiom necessary for mathematics |
| Week 6 (2nd June) | Balthasar Grabmayr (Tubingen) | Computation and the structure of arithmetic |
| Week 2 (27th Jan) | Peter Fritz (UCL) | HIgher-Order Metaphysical Resolutions of the Continuum Hypothesis |
| Week 4 (10th Feb) | Fiona Doherty (University of Glasgow) | Neo-Fregean logicism: Frege's final word |
| Week 6 (24th Feb) | Thomas Forster (University of Cambridge & Victoria University of Wellington | On the consistency of Quine's set theory NF: a briefing in the light of recent developments |
| Week 8 (10th March) | Jonathan Kirby (University of East Anglia) | Up with categories, down with sets; out with categories, in with sets! |
| Week 2 (21st Oct) | Balthasar Grabmayr (University of Tubingen) | Computation and the structure of arithmetic |
| Week 4 (4th November) | Silvia De Toffoli (University of Pavia) | How to prove things with diagrams |
| Week 6 (18th Nov) | Fabian Pregel (Oxford) | Is logical consequence a relation between Fregean thoughts? |
| Week 8 (2nd Dec) | James Studd (Oxford) | Contingentist sets as potentialist properties |
| Week 2 (29th Apr) | Laura Crosilla (University of Oslo) | Predicativity as Invariance |
| Week 4 (13th May) | William D'Alessandro (Oxford) | Explanation in mathematics: a noetic account (based on joint work with Ellen Lehet) |
| Week 6 (27th May) | Carl Posy (Hebrew University) | Model Theory, Intuitionism, and Paradox |
| Week 8 (10th Jun) | Douglas Blue (UoP) | Hierarchies of Infinity |
| Week 2 (22nd Jan) | Ali Enayat (Gothenberg) | Categoricity-like properties in the first order realm |
| Week 4 (5th Feb) | Cancelled | Cancelled |
| Week 6 (19th Feb) | Sharon Berry (Indiana University Bloomington) | Mathematical access worries and accounting for knowledge of logical coherence |
| Week 8 (4th March) | Stella Moon (CAoSIoP) | Husserlian Philosophy of Mathematical Practice and Homotopy Type Theory |
| Week 2 (16th Oct) | Fenner Tanswell (Technische Univesitat Berlin) & Asgeir Berg Matthiasson (UoI) | The Philosophical Implications of Using Large Language Models in Mathematics |
| Week 4 (30th Oct) | Benjamin Marschall (Cambridge) | Carnap, the conventionalist |
| Week 6 (13th Nov) | Chris Scambler (Oxford) | The Possibility of Potentialism |
| Week 8 (27th Nov) | Hans Robin Solberg (Oxford) | Are Large Cardinal Axioms in Bad Company? |
| Week 2 (1st May) | Daniel Isaacson (Oxford) | Kripke on Godel incompleteness |
| Week 4 (15th May) | Xinhe Wu (Bristol) | Boolean-Valued Models of Set Theory with Urelements |
| Week 5 (22nd May) | Joel David Hamkins (Notre Dame) | Natural Instances of Illfoundedness and Nonlinearity in the Hierarchy of Consistency Strength |
| Week 6 (29th May) | Anna Bellomo (Vienna) | Bolzano's Measurable Numbers |
| Week 8 (12th June) | Andrew Bacon (UoSC) | Mathematical Modality: An Investigation of Set-Theoretic Contingency |
| Week 2 (23rd Jan) | Wesley Wrigley (LSE) | Absolutely Unpredictable Arithmetical Propositions |
| Week 4 (6th Feb) | Mary Leng (York) | To Be (Thin) or Not To Be? Are Thin Objects Fictional or Are Fictional Objects Thin? |
| Week 6 (20th Feb) | Juhani Yli-Vakkuri (ACU) & Zachary Goodsell (UoSC) | New Logical Foundations for Mathematics |
| Week 8 (6th March) | Andreas Ditter (Oxford) | Higher-Order Essences |
| Week 2 (17th Oct) | Carlo Nicolai (KCL) | Graph conceptions of properties |
| Week 5 (7th Nov) | A.C Paseau & Fabian Pregel (Oxford) | Deductivism: A New Appraisal |
| Week 6 (14th Nov) | Wilfried Sieg (Carnegie-Mellon) | Proofs as Objects |
| Week 8 (28th Nov) | Frederique Janssen-Lauret (Manchester) | Founding Mothers: Women's Contributions to Logic in the Early Analytic Period |
| Week 2 (2nd May) | Carolin Antos (Konstanz) | Defective concepts and pluralism in mathematics |
| Week 4 (16th May) | Alexander Roberts (Oriel College) | Modality and modalities |
| Week 6 (30th May) | Crispin Wright (NYU) | Making Exceptions |
| Week 8 (13th June) | Luca Incurvati (Amsterdam) | On logical and scientific strength |
| Week 2 (24th Jan) | Chris Scrambler (All Souls College) | Axiomatic Potentialism |
| Week 4 (7th Feb) | Kit Fine (NYU) | Postulation and Possibility |
| Week 6 (21st Feb) | Paolo Mancosu (Berkeley & Paris) | How many points are in a line segment? From Grosseteste to the theory of numerosities |
| Week 8 (7th March) | Zeynep Soysal (Rochester) | Fixing mathematical content |
| Week 2 (18th Oct) | Eileen Nutting (Kansas) | Approaches to Ordinal Abstraction |
| Week 4 1st Nov | Joel Hamkins (Oxford) | Fregean abstraction in Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory |
| Week 6 (15th Nov) | Keith Hossack (Birbeck) | The Known Universe |
| Week 8 (29th Nov) | Beau Mount (Konstanz) | Goliath's Sword: Repurposing Fictionalism to Tame Choice Sequences |
| Week 2 (3 May) |
Sorin Bangu (Bergen) |
Two dualisms in later Wittgenstein's writings on mathematics |
| Week 4 (17 May) |
Charles Parsons (Harvard) |
Evidence and the hierarchy of mathematical theories |
| Week 6 (31 May) |
Andrea Reichenberger (Paderborn) |
Rózsa Péter on the philosophy and foundations of mathematics |
| Week 8 (14 June) |
Andrea Cantini (Florence) |
Reflecting and unfolding |
| Week 2 (25th Jan) |
David Corfield (Kent) |
''Modal Homotopy Type Theory'' | |
| Week 4 (8th Feb) |
Mate Szabo (Oxford) |
''Max Newman's Influence on Turing's Early Work'' | |
| Week 6 (22nd Feb) |
Peter Koellner (Harvard) |
''Two Futures: Pattern or Chaos'' | |
| Week 8 (8th March) |
Giovanna Corsi (Bologna) |
''From Kripke to Lewis and beyond: A foundational study of quantified modal logic'' |
| Week 2 (19th Oct) |
Patricia Blanchette (Notre Dame) |
"Frege on Caesar and Hume's Principle" |
| Week 4 (2nd Nov) |
Rebecca Morris |
"Intellectual virtues in mathematics" |
| Week 6 (16th Nov) |
Stephen Yablo (MIT) |
"How and why to be logically non-omniscient" |
| Week 8 (30th Nov) |
Neil Barton (Konstanz) |
"Algebraic levels and incomplete structures" |
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Tim Button (UCL) |
Loving the Universe |
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Martin Fischer (Munich) |
Predicativity, Potentiality and Partiality |
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Peter Fritz (Australian Catholic University Melbourne)
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Why Intensionalism? |
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Hanoch Ben-Yami (Central European University): The Quantified Argument Calculus |
Introduction, Overview, and Future Directions |
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Albert Visser (Utrecht) |
What is a Provability Predicate? |
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Sam Roberts (Oslo) |
Ultimate V |
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Daniel Isaacson (Oxford) |
Kreisel’s Philosophy of Mathematics |
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Timothy Williamson (Oxford) |
Impossible Worlds and Semantic Compositionality |
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Week 1 (14th January) |
Michal Godziszewski (Warsaw) | 'Local disquotation, semantic non-conservativity of truth, and models of set theory' |
| Week 1 (17th January) | John Baldwin (Illinois) | 'Philosophical implications of the paradigm shift in model theory' |
| Week 3 (28th January | Menachem Magidor (Hebrew University) | 'Independence in mathematics: is it relevant?' |
| Week 5 (11th February) | Mateusz Łełyk (Warsaw) | 'Many ways of saying that axioms of PA are true' |
| Week 6 | Marcus Giaquinto (UCL) | 'A priori and a posteriori in mathematics' |
| Week 4 (29th Oct) | Joel Hamkins (Oxford) | "On Set-Theoretical Mereology as a Foundation of Mathematics" |
| Week 6 (12 Nov) | Laura Crosilla (Birmingham) | "Predicativity, Indefinite Extensibility and the Natural Numbers" |
| Week 7 (19 Nov) | James Ladyman (Bristol) | "The Philosophical Logic of Homotopy Theory" |
| Week 8 (26 Nov) | Alex Paseau (Oxford) | "Which Cardinality Quantifiers are Logical" |
