MATHEMATICS: DISCOVERY OR INVENTION?

Kit Fine

Mathematics has been the most successful and is the

most mature of the sciences. Its first great master work –
Euclid’s ‘Elements’ – which helped to establish the field

Think Autumn 2012 † 11

and demonstrate the power of its methods, was written
about 2400 years ago; and it served as a standard text in
the mathematics curriculum well into the twentieth century.
By contrast, the first comparable master work of physics –
Newton’s Principia – was written 300 odd years ago. And
the juvenile science of biology only got its first master work –
Darwin’s ‘On the Origin of Species’ – a mere 150 years
ago. The development of the subject has also been extra-
ordinarily fertile, particularly in the last three centuries, and
it is perhaps only in the last century that the other sciences
have begun to approach mathematics in the steady accumu-
lation of knowledge that it has been able to offer. There has,
moreover, been almost universal agreement on its methods
and how they are to be applied. What we require is proof; and,
in practice, there is very little disagreement over whether or not
we have it. The other sciences, by contrast, tend to get mired
in controversy over the significance of this or that experimental
finding or over whether one theory is to be preferred to another.
But despite its great success and maturity, the foun-
dations of the subject have been shrouded in problems and
mysteries. How is it possible for there to be an ontology of
mathematical objects – of numbers, sets, functions and the
like – apparently set apart from the familiar ontology of
physical things – with its chairs and tables or molecules
and atoms – and from the familiar ontology of mental
things – with its beliefs and desires or pleasures and
pains. And even if it is possible for there to be such an
ontology, then how is possible for us to talk or think about
doi:10.1017/S1477175612000188 # The Royal Institute of Philosophy, 2012
Think 32, Vol. 11 (Autumn 2012)

https://doi.org/10.1017/S1477175612000188 Published online by Cambridge University Press

 it? How can we grasp what it is to be a natural number or
of what it is for one natural number to be a successor of
another? And even if it is possible for us to talk or think
about the ontology of mathematics, how can we get to
know about its objects? How can we know that each
natural number has at most one successor, let alone the
more advanced results of mathematics, such as Fermat’s
Last Theorem or the Four Color Conjecture? In a word,
Mathematics: Discovery or Invention? † 12

how can there be a ‘third’ world of mathematical objects

and how can we, who are firmly ensconced in the psycho/
physical world, bridge the gap between our world and this
other world?
In response to these problems, philosophers of math-
ematics have tended to move in one of two directions.
Some have thought of mathematics as being in us. The
objects of mathematics are somehow creatures of our own
making – perhaps somewhat in the same way as the
objects of fiction – and in talking or thinking of mathemat-
ics we are, if only indirectly, talking or thinking about our-
selves. There is then no mystery as to what this third world
might be for its objects are or derive from our own
thoughts; and there is no mystery as to how to bridge the
gap between our world and the world of mathematics since
there is no gap to bridge.
Other philosophers have thought of mathematics as
being outside of us – as existing independently of our own
thoughts and feelings. There is then a gap to bridge; and
they have thought that just as we may grasp and gain
Fine

knowledge of the physical world through perception, so we

may grasp and gain knowledge of the mathematical world
through some sort of intellectual counterpart of perception.
Thus just as I may survey the scene before me and
thereby gain knowledge of its objects and how they are
related, so I may survey the series of natural numbers or
the continuum of points on the line and thereby gain knowl-
edge of the mathematical scene that lies before my ‘eyes’.
Both of these views suffer from severe difficulties. The
first ‘constructivist’ view hobbles mathematical practice as

https://doi.org/10.1017/S1477175612000188 Published online by Cambridge University Press

 we know it. We would like to say that the Twin Prime
Conjecture is either definitely true or definitely false. But
how can we be so confident of this if its truth or falsity must
somehow reside in us? For if we are incapable of settling
the question, as well we might, then there is nothing in
which the truth or falsity of the conjecture might consist.
The second ‘platonist’ view does not have this problem.
For given the existence of the number series, the truth or

Think Autumn 2012 † 13

falsity of the Twin Prime Conjecture will be settled one way
or the other. But the platonists have never been able to
provide a satisfactory explanation of what this intellectual
form of perception might be or of how it might be capable
of latching onto to its objects and providing us with knowl-
edge of how they are related.
In the light of these and of other problems, one might be
tempted to adopt an intermediate position. We seem to
face a stark choice between the objects of mathematics
being invented, on the one hand, or discovered, on the
other. But could the truth lie somewhere in the middle?
Could the objects of mathematics be somehow both partly
invented and partly discovered.
In this connection, the late distinguished English philoso-
pher, Michael Dummett, has suggested that the objects of
mathematics might somehow be ‘prodded’ into existence.
Thus they will not be entirely products of our minds since
there must already be something there to prod, but nor will
they be entirely independent of us since we need to prod in
order to bring them into existence.
This is a nice metaphor but, as Dummett is himself
aware, it is not at all clear what it comes to. What exactly is
prodded? What is the prodding? And what results from the
prodding? If we prod a sleeping dog with a stick it will
begin to wake (and perhaps growl). But what, in the case
of mathematics, is the dog, the stick and the awakening?
In the present paper, I would like to suggest a way of
cashing out the metaphor. We thereby arrive, I believe, at a
much more satisfactory conception of mathematics – one
that does not hobble mathematical practice as we know it

https://doi.org/10.1017/S1477175612000188 Published online by Cambridge University Press

 or make too much of a mystery as to how we might acquire
knowledge of mathematical facts.
But before going into details, I need to review some key
points from the history of mathematics. In the beginning
were the positive natural numbers – 1, 2, 3, . . .. These are
used to count objects – two turtle doves, three french
hens, four calling birds. But later, zero and the negative
integers were introduced. After that, the rationals numbers –
Mathematics: Discovery or Invention? † 14

the ratio of one integer to another, positive, integer. After

that, the irrational numbers – the limits of a bounded
sequences that would otherwise be without a limit. And after
that, the complex numbers – those that could be formed
from i, the square root of – 1.
All of these extensions have their uses. The introduction
of negative integers enables us to maintain the comforting
illusion that we had money in the bank, –$1000, say, when
we were actually in debt; and the introduction of rational
numbers enables us to engage in endless spending, first
spending 1c, then 1/2 a cent, then 1/4 a cent, and so on
ad infinitum. More seriously, these various extensions
enable us to provide order and unity to various branches of
mathematics. Equations which could not otherwise be
solved would now have a solution, for example, and lines
or areas which could not otherwise be measured would
now have a length or size.
But what are we doing when we extend the number
system in this way and what justifies us in doing it? On the
face of it, these successive extensions of the number
Fine

system are strongly suggestive of the constructive picture,

in which mathematical objects are creatures of our own
making. Need a number which when added to 3 gives 0?
Hey presto, just take there to be such a number and call
it – 3. Need a number which when multiplied by 3 will
give 1? Hey presto, just take there to be such a number
and call it 1/3. Need a number which is the square root of
2? Hey presto, just take there to be a number which fills
the gap between those rational numbers whose square is
less than 2 and those rational numbers whose square is

https://doi.org/10.1017/S1477175612000188 Published online by Cambridge University Press

 greater than 2. In all of these cases, it looks as if the the
various types of number have simply been postulated into
existence as and when they were required. And it also
appears as if the only constraint on postulating the new
types of number is that it should be consistent to suppose
that they exist. If it is consistent to suppose that the nega-
tive integers might exist, for example, then we may legiti-
mately infer that they do exist; and, similarly, if it is

Think Autumn 2012 † 15

consistent to suppose that rationals or reals or complex
numbers might exist, then I may legitimately infer that they
do exist. Hence the adage that, in mathematics, to exist is
to be possible.
But although the constructivist position is most naturally
suggested by actual mathematical practice, it is not the
position that was generally adopted by the philosophers
who first considered the question in the latter part of the
nineteenth century and the early part of the twentieth
century and nor is it the position that has been adopted by
most contemporary textbooks in mathematics. These philo-
sophers – and I principally have in mind Frege, Russell
and Whitehead – thought that the various extensions of
the number system were not properly extensions at all. It is
not as if we began with a domain of objects to which the
integers, the rationals and the like were then added.
Rather, these objects were already there and, in ‘extending’
the number system, we are not introducing new objects but
adopting a less restrictive conception of number under
which these objects might then be taken to fall.
An analogy may help. Suppose I am at a party and
someone says ‘there is no beer’, meaning no beer in the
house. I then remark ‘there is some beer’, meaning beer in
the store. This then is hardly a case in which I have intro-
duced new intoxicants into the domain of what there is to
drink (if only it were so easy!). I have merely adopted a
less restrictive view of where such intoxicants are to be
found. And similarly in the case of the number system. We
begin with a very restrictive conception of what it is to be a
number, one in which ‘number’ means ‘natural number’.

https://doi.org/10.1017/S1477175612000188 Published online by Cambridge University Press

 We then adopt a less restrictive conception in which it
means ‘integer’; and so on for the rationals, the reals, and
the complex numbers. There has been no extension to the
domain of numbers, but merely a liberalization in what we
mean by ‘number’.
Not only were the views of these philosophers (and the
contemporary textbooks) not in line with the most natural
view of mathematical practice, they also had some bizarre
Mathematics: Discovery or Invention? † 16

consequences of their own. For what were these ‘new’

numbers – the integers, the rationals, the reals and the
complex numbers like? If they were already there, then we
needed some prior reason to think that they existed – one
that had no essential connection with their role as
numbers. So the tendency was to identify them with some
other kind of object – such as the sets – which we had
independent reason to believe in and which were suffi-
ciently abundant as to be able to play the different roles
that the different types of number were required to perform.
Thus it was that the rationals were taken to be equivalence
classes of ordered pairs of integers (the ‘ratios’), the reals
to be ‘Dedekind cuts’, and the complex numbers ordered
pairs of reals (one for the real component and the other for
the imaginary component).
But these identifications are quite ‘arbitrary’; they add
something entirely gratuitous to what properly belongs to
our conception of what these objects are. There is no
reason, for example, why a rational number should be
taken to be an equivalence class rather than a representa-
Fine

tive member of such an equivalence class (one, say,

in which the numerator and denominator have no factor in
common); and even if a rational number is taken to be an
equivalence class of ordered pairs, why take it to be an
ordered pair in which the numerator is put first and the
denominator second rather than the other way round?
Moreover, if we want to adopt a uniform view of the
numbers of each type, one in which their general nature is
essentially the same, then at each stage in the extension
of the number system we will have to admit replicas of the

https://doi.org/10.1017/S1477175612000188 Published online by Cambridge University Press

 numbers at the previous stage. Not only will there be the
natural number 1, there must, if rationals are to be equival-
ence classes of pairs of integers, be a rational number 1,
that is the set of ordered pairs of integers of the form
(n, n), and, in the same way, there will be the real number
1, that is the Dedekind cut consisting of the rationals less
than or equal to 1 and the rationals greater than 1, and
there will be the complex number 1, that is the ordered pair

Think Autumn 2012 † 17

(1, 0). In one’s mathematical innocence, one might have
thought that there was a single number 1 and that, in
extending the number system, one added to the numbers
that were already there. But not so on the present view.
There are as many number 1’s as there are types of
number and in extending the number system we are not
adding to the numbers that are already there but replacing
them with something new. If fidelity to actual mathematical
practice had been given any weight, then the present view
would have been dismissed long ago.
But to make matters worse, it is not even clear that the
present view has any real epistemological advantage over
the postulational view. Take the case of the reals; and con-
sider a ‘gap’ in the rational numbers, as when we have all
of the rationals whose square is less than 2 on the one
side and all of the rationals whose square is greater than 2;
on the other side. We want to ‘fill’ this gap with an irrational
number, the square root of 2. What we do on the traditional
view is postulate an irrational number to fill the gap. But
what we do on the standard contemporary view is take an
object already at hand, such as the set of rationals whose
square root is less than 2, and let it fill the gap. The exist-
ence of an object to fill the gap is then no more in dispute
than is the existence of the set.
But why think the existence of the set is any less proble-
matic than the existence of a number that was simply pos-
tulated to fill the gap? After all, the postulated number
draws a boundary between the numbers whose square is
less than 2 and those whose square is greater than 2. But
the set does more or less the same; it draws a boundary

https://doi.org/10.1017/S1477175612000188 Published online by Cambridge University Press

 between those objects which are rationals whose square is
less than 2 and all other objects. Indeed, one might be for-
given for thinking that the existence of the set arises as
much from an act of postulation as does the existence of
the irrational. In the one case, we wish to extend the
domain of numbers and in the other case we wish to the
domain of sets; and we feel as justified in taking there to
be an object that might fill a ‘gap’ in the domain of
Mathematics: Discovery or Invention? † 18

numbers as we feel justified in taking there to be an object

that fills a ‘gap’ in the domain of sets.
If I am right, then the standard view does a miserable job
in explaining what we actually do in extending the number
system or in justifying what we do. But is there a more sat-
isfactory view – one that might do justice to the thought
that the new types of number are genuinely introduced and
the number system is genuinely extended?
We here face an enormous difficulty – which will take us
to the heart of our attempt to understand the metaphor of
prodding. For in extending the number system, we want the
new types of number not to be already there. But how can
that be? How can we generate numbers out of thin air?
One possibility is that in postulating the different types of
number we bring them into existence, perhaps much in the
same way as an author may bring his fictional characters
into existence. But it is odd to think of the irrational
numbers, say, as not existing prior to our acts of postulation
or even to think of them as existing in time at all. And what
if some previous generations many eons ago had already
Fine

postulated the irrational numbers so that they already

existed? Would our postulation of them then be impossible?
Or would they have been postulating their irrational
numbers and we have been postulating ours.
Clearly, this is not a reasonable hypothesis. But what
then is going on? In what sense are the numbers that are
added to the number system not already there and in what
sense are they postulated?
In order to answer this question, we must go to another
chapter in the history of mathematics. In considering

https://doi.org/10.1017/S1477175612000188 Published online by Cambridge University Press

 Cantor’s theory of transfinite number, Russell came across
a paradox, which now bears his name. Surely, for any con-
dition on objects there should exist a set of objects that
conform to the condition. But consider now the condition of
being a set that is not a member of itself. There should be
a set of objects conforming to the condition. This will be
the set of all those sets that are not members of them-
selves. Does this set belong to itself? If it does, then it con-

Think Autumn 2012 † 19

forms to the condition and so does not belong to itself. If it
does not, then it fails to conform to the condition and so
does belong itself. A contradiction either way! Where have
we gone wrong? One response to the paradox is to take
our mistake to consist in thinking that we can quantify over
absolutely all sets. Go back to the party. My informant who
said ‘there is no beer’ only quantified over the beer in the
house. I, in responding to him, quantified over the beer in
the near neighborhood. But surely it is possible for us to
quantify over all the beer that there is – not here or there
but anywhere. And surely it is also possible, one might
think, for us to quantify over all the sets that there are –
not just sets of things, say, or sets of sets of things, but all
sets whatever.
The present response to Russell’s paradox maintains
that this natural thought – the thought that one can quantify
over absolutely everything – is mistaken. For whatever I
quantify over, I can always quantify over more. I can, for
example, always quantify over the set of all those objects
that I previously quantified over that conform to some pre-
specified condition and so, in particular, I can include within
the range of my new quantifier the set all those sets that I
previously quantified over that are not members of them-
selves. But then, on pain of contradiction, this set cannot
be one of the objects that I previously quantified over. In
this way, the domain of quantification can always be
extended and quantification over absolutely everything
becomes impossible.
There is the danger of a certain kind of transcendental
illusion here, an illusion in which we take ourselves to be

https://doi.org/10.1017/S1477175612000188 Published online by Cambridge University Press

 capable of transcending a situation in which we necessarily
find ourselves. For given the endless possibilities for
extending the domain of quantification, I feel as if I can
quantify over all of the domains of quantification that might
be achieved through making such extensions. And if I can
quantify over all of these domains, then I can quantify over
all of the objects in these domains and thereby quantify
over absolutely everything.
Mathematics: Discovery or Invention? † 20

But this is like thinking we can survey all of space from a

position outside of space. Just as there is no escape from
our position in space, so there is no escape from the possi-
bility of extending the domain of quantification. And no
matter how hard we might try to leapfrog over all of the
different domains through which the extension of given
domain might be achieved, the possibility of further extend-
ing the given domain will always remain and the goal of
achieving an absolutely unrestricted form of quantification
will forever elude us. We are trapped within an essentially
limited ontology just as we are trapped in space; and
although we may always extend our horizon and take in
more and more, there is no vantage point from which the
horizon disappears.
We are now in a better position to understand the sense
in which, in extending the number system, the new types of
number are not ‘already there’. For it may be supposed that
the way in which one extends the number system is exactly
analogous to the way in which one might extend the
domain of sets. In each case there is a potential, so to
Fine

speak, for introducing new objects of the required sort into

the domain and this potential is then realized by making
the appropriate decision to introduce these objects in such
and such a way. It is not that ‘number’ first means natural
number, then means integer, and then means rational
number or that ‘set’ first means set of things, then means
set of things or set of sets of things. ‘Number’ and ‘set’
mean the same all along. But in each case, we adopt a
more inclusive view of which objects we will take to fall
under these categories.

https://doi.org/10.1017/S1477175612000188 Published online by Cambridge University Press

 We can now understand the metaphor of the dog. The dog
represents the potential for extending the domain of quantifi-
cation. But how is this potential realized? What is the mechan-
ism by which the domain is extended to include new objects?
We have rejected the view that the domain is extended – or
perhaps I should say ‘pseudo-extended’ – through adopting a
more liberal restriction on its objects. But what takes its place?
How can the domain become larger without any change in

Think Autumn 2012 † 21

the category of objects by which it is defined? We may under-
stand the metaphor of the dog, but how should we understand
the stick by which it is prodded from its slumbers?
To answer this question, we must turn to another piece
of intellectual history, not so much in mathematics as in
computer science. We are all familiar with the idea of a
program. This is a set of instructions that enables a compu-
ter to perform some task – such as guiding a missile to its
target or putting some words in alphabetic order. But how
do we know that the program will perform its task – that it
will actually succeed in guiding the missile to its target or
putting the words in alphabetic order? An important branch
of computer science is concerned with developing tech-
niques for verifying whether a program will perform its task;
and I shall be interested in a particular such technique,
DPL or dynamic programming logic.
I want to take (and to modify) two ideas from DPL. The
first is a a very simple idea of a programing language in
which we may set out the instructions we wish the compu-
ter to perform. Consider the instructions you might make in
ordinary life, perhaps to a child. You might say ‘if you want
dinner then wash your hands’. This is a conditional instruc-
tion of the form:

if . . . then do —.

Or you might say ‘eat your spinach and drink your milk’.
This is a composite instruction of the sort:

do — and then do —.

https://doi.org/10.1017/S1477175612000188 Published online by Cambridge University Press

 Or you might say ‘keep doing your homework until you
have finished’. This is in effect an iterative instruction of the
form:

keep iterating –

For it results from taking the conditional instruction ‘if you

have not finished then continue to do your homework’ by
Mathematics: Discovery or Invention? † 22

requiring that it be iterated until there is nothing to be done.

Thus if the child has not done his homework, he will obey
the conditional instruction and continue with his homework.
If after continuing with his homework for a few seconds, he
is still not done then he will again obey the conditional and
continue for a few seconds more; and so on until (God
willing) the homework is done.
To these three basic forms of instruction from DPL – the
conditional, the composite and the iterative – I wish to add
two others. I might say to my child ‘kiss everyone here’.
This is a general instruction of the form:

for all x, do . . . x. . ..’

For it results from generalizing the conditional instruction ‘if

x is here then kiss x’. The child is then meant to take x,
check to see if x is here, and then to kiss x if x is indeed
here.
I also wish to add a simple form of instruction. The forms
of instruction so far introduced have been complex, they
Fine

have enabled us to form more complex instruction from

simpler instructions. Thus composition forms the complex
instruction ‘eat your spinach and drink your milk’ from the
simpler instructions ‘eat your spinach’ and ‘drink your milk’.
But unless we have simple instructions to which the
complex forms of instruction may apply, we will have no
instructions at all.
Now the simple instructions from our examples were
ones like ‘eat your spinach’, ‘kiss your aunt’, ‘continue with
your homework’. These are clearly not appropriate within

https://doi.org/10.1017/S1477175612000188 Published online by Cambridge University Press

 the mathematical context. What we require is a form of
instruction, which I call Introduction and which enables us
to introduce a new object into the domain suitably related
to the pre-existing objects in the domain. Suppose, for
example, that I have an apple and an orange in the
domain. Then I might form the instruction:

introduce a set of which the apple and the orange is

Think Autumn 2012 † 23

a member.

This will then result in the domain containing the pair of the
apple and the orange. Forgive the pun, but this is the way
one gets a ‘pear’ from an apple and an orange.
Of course, Introduction is not an instruction that a child
or even an adult can actually perform. We might imagine
that we have an obliging genie who performs each of these
operations. But in reality these are intellectual operations in
which the effect can be taken to come off simply through
the appropriate laying down of the instruction.
Using these different forms of instruction, we then have
the means by which we can specify how the domain is to
be extended. We have the stick with which to prod the dog.
By way of illustration, let us see how we might generate
the ontology of natural numbers. Suppose I lay down the
following instruction:

Let there be a number; and then

Keep iterating: for any number, let there be a suc-
cessor of the number.

Let us see what happens when the genie executes the

instruction. He first introduces a number (this will be 0). He
then performs the second instruction and so introduces a
successor to 0. He performs again the second instruction
and thereby introduces a successor to 1 (0 already has a
successor and so he need not do anything in this case);
and he continues in this manner until all of the natural
numbers have been introduced.

https://doi.org/10.1017/S1477175612000188 Published online by Cambridge University Press

 This example goes beyond our original edict, which was
to explain how the system of natural numbers might be
extended to include the rationals and the reals and the like.
For what we have done is to introduce the natural numbers
themselves in the very same way in which we had hoped
to introduce the other types of number. Indeed, it is my
belief that the whole ontology of mathematics can be gen-
erated in this way – starting off with absolutely nothing and
Mathematics: Discovery or Invention? † 24

then laying down appropriate postulates by which the

objects from the different branches of mathematics can be
introduced. Whether or not this is so, there is no difficulty in
seeing how the various extensions of the number system
can be seen to arise from laying down the appropriate sort
of postulate.
The second thing I wish to to take from dynamic pro-
gramming logic is the idea that we may use the idioms of
possibility and necessity to describe the behavior of pro-
grams. Suppose I run a program on a computer. One
possibility is that there will be no outcome – either
because the program ‘crashes’ or because it never termi-
nates. The program may ask me to do a piece of non-
sense, like divide by 0, in which case it will crash; or it may
keep asking me to do something without end (like count
the natural numbers one after the other) in which case it
will never terminate. The other possibility is that the
program will terminate in a meaningful outcome, from
which information can then be discerned.
One may use the language of possibility and necessity
Fine

to describe these possible outcomes. Thus to say possibly

w, given the program P, is to say that there is a possible
outcome of P in which w is the case and to say necessarily
w, given the program P, is to say that every possible
outcome of P is one in which w is the case. Suppose, for
example, that P is a program for computing the factorial
of x when x ¼ 5. Then to say necessarily the factorial is 60
given P is to say that every possible outcome of this
program will be one in which the factorial is taken to be 60;
and to say possibly something or the other given P is to

https://doi.org/10.1017/S1477175612000188 Published online by Cambridge University Press

 say that there is a possible outcome of this program (since
in any possible outcome something or other will hold).
Thus the two claims together say that the program will ter-
minate and that when it terminates it will take the factorial
to be 60.
I should like to suggest that we adopt a similar language
for describing the behavior of the postulates for extending
the domain. In particular, we will be able to say that the

Think Autumn 2012 † 25

procedure specified by a postulate will be executable, i.e.
that it will terminate in an extension of the domain and we
will be able to say how things are when it terminates.
These are both key if we are put the method of procedural
postulation to work.
Suppose I were to tell the genie to introduce an object
that both is and is not a number. On the assumption that
the genie had performed the procedure, I could then infer
that this object was both a number and not a number.
Clearly not a satisfactory result. This is a case in which it is
obvious that the procedure cannot be performed. But other
cases are less obvious. Suppose I tell the genie to keep
introducing a number greater than all numbers so far intro-
duced. The genie will then never stop. For suppose he
does stop. ‘Here, I’m done’, he says to himself. But no, for
he must introduce yet another number greater than all
those that he has so far introduced.
What this means is that before I tell the genie to do any-
thing I must make sure it can be done. I must demonstrate
that the procedure will indeed terminate.
This is something I must do before specifying a pro-
cedure. But there is also something I must do after specify-
ing the procedure. For given that the genie has executed a
procedure, I will wish to determine what is true in the result-
ing domain. I will wish to ascertain, for example, that as a
result of carrying out the procedure NUMBER above, the
resulting domain will be one in which each number has a
successor.
I have developed a calculus, called ‘procedural logic’,
which enables one to carry out these tasks. It enables one

https://doi.org/10.1017/S1477175612000188 Published online by Cambridge University Press

 on the input side, before specifying a procedure, to demon-
strate that it can indeed be executed; and it enables one
on the output side, once a procedure has been executed,
to determine what will then be true.
With a procedural logic at hand, it is possible to develop
a foundation for the whole of mathematics. One starts off
with a completely empty domain of objects (though you can
throw in some shoes and ships and sealing wax if you
Mathematics: Discovery or Invention? † 26

like). One then demonstrates the ‘consistency’ or execut-

ability of certain procedures for extending the domain.
Given the demonstration of consistency, these procedures
can then be executed and the axioms governing the result-
ing domain can be determined. And so it goes on.
One remarkable aspect of this approach is that the
axioms of mathematics are themselves derived. It is a com-
monly supposed that the axioms of a theory cannot be
derived from anything more basic. But that is not exactly
so. What is true is that if we are going to derive truths from
truths then we must begin with some axioms or basic
truths that are not themselves derived from other truths.
But that still leaves open the possibility that the basic truths
may themselves may be derived from something that is not
a truth. And this is what happens in the present case. We
lay down the postulate NUMBER, for example, which is an
instruction rather than a truth; and, from our having laid
down this postulate, we then deduce that the standard
axioms of number theory will indeed hold.
Thus the present approach to mathematics is essentially
Fine

axiom-less. What is essential to mathematics is the postu-

lation, not of truths, but of procedures; and it is only once
the procedures have been specified that we can go about
the normal business of determining what is true.
I began with the question ‘is mathematics invented or
discovered?’, to which my answer is both. The possibilities
for extending the domain are to be discovered. They are
‘out there’, so to speak, and in no way depend upon what
we do or think. But how we realize those possibilities,
which procedural postulates we lay down to extend the

https://doi.org/10.1017/S1477175612000188 Published online by Cambridge University Press

 domain, is entirely up to us. We can extend the system of
numbers in this or that way or extend the domain of sets to
whatever infinite limit we choose. The only constraint is our
imagination and what we find appropriate or pleasing.

Kit Fine is University Professor and Silver Professor of

Think Autumn 2012 † 27

Philosophy and Mathematics at NYU. This paper was given
as a talk with the same title at Boise, April 2011, under the
auspices of the Boise State Department of Philosophy
and the Idaho Humanities Council. I am grateful for the
comments I received from the audience on that occasion.
[email protected]

https://doi.org/10.1017/S1477175612000188 Published online by Cambridge University Press