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by naasking 992 days ago
It doesn't seem correct to equate mathematics with proof. If I express a mathematical construction like the whole numbers (let Whole = Zero | Succ Whole), and I build further constructions on that foundation, am I doing mathematics? If so, then it seems mathematics does not depend on logic, as logic depends on propositions and there are no propositions to be seen.

Certainly you can analyze such constructions using logic, but that's again conflating logic with mathematics. There's overlap, but they aren't strictly the same.

1 comments

I would say that a mathematical construction is based in logic, maybe not in the traditional sense, but there is definitely logic behind the construction itself. I think we are talking past one another, what I mean by logic here is more nebulous than predicate calculus. There is an innate logic behind the philosophy of mathematics and I believe you cannot divorce mathematics from logic.