Meditations on Second Philosophy: Anti-Nominalist Reflections on Maddy’s Semi-Nominalism

Maddy’s successive views on mathematical existence are reviewed, with emphasis on her final view, characterizable as semi-nominalist. This is critically examined and evaluated from a firmly anti-nominalist (though not in any serious sense “Platonist”) standpoint. As might be expected from this characterization, the evaluation is mixed, with positive and with negative aspects, all disagreement (and there is enough of it) put forward against a background of massive agreement.