The Applicability of Mathematics in Science: indispensability and Ontology

Do electrons and genes exist?

If inclined to answer ‘yes’, let’s ask a harder question: do numbers exist?

This book argues that the answer should be, again, affirmative. It elaborates a
philosophical position according to which all, and only, entities truly indispensable
to the formulation of modern scientific theories should be recognized as existent,
regardless of how we might be initially tempted to categorize them – as concretephysical
or abstract-mathematical. In addition to explicating the subtleties of the
positive reasons supporting this form of realism, the book clarifies and rebuts a variety
of objections raised against this position.

Sorin Bangu is an Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy, University of
Bergen, Norway. His main interests and publications are in philosophy of science and
mathematics, and the history of analytic philosophy (especially Wittgenstein and
Quine).