September 4, 2015
All Day
347 University Hall
Abstract: Like other platonists, neo-logicists Bob Hale and Crispin Wright face Benacerraf's epistemic problems. According to their neo-Fregean solution to these problems, our knowl- edge of and reference to the finite cardinal numbers can be grounded in the stipulation of Hume's Principle. I argue that, even if their epistemic account is logically possible, it is actually false. We discovered the numbers through our intellectual ancestors, and their cognition of the numbers could not be grounded in the way that Hale and Wright describe. Without an account of how we actually come to know the numbers, Hale and Wright have not resolved Benacerraf's problems.
Eileen Nutting is an Assistant Professor at The University of Kansas.
