Abstract

Indispensabilism, owed to Quine and Putnam, is the view that mathematics is justified by its application to the empirical world. Although much has been written about the associated Indispensability Argument over the past 30 years, other important aspects of the Indispensabilist picture have been neglected. This article reviews some of that recent literature and then tackles four relatively neglected yet significant objections to Indispensabilism. Its overall aim is to bolster Indispensabilism and underscore its merits as an epistemology of mathematics.