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Logic and Philosophy of Science Group Talk (Sorin Bangu, Bergen)

Thursday March 12, 2026, 3:00 pm - 5:00 pm

A middle-aged white man with short, mousy brown hair and glasses standing in suit jacket and shirt against a wintery background in a European town.

The Logic and Philosophy of Science Group is pleased to welcome as guest speaker Sorin Bangu, a professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Bergen in Norway. Dr. Bangu works in philosophy of science (especially philosophy of mathematics and physics), with further interests in Wittgenstein and Quine. He is involved in the activities of the Wittgenstein Archives Bergen and serves as a co-editor of its open access journal, Nordic Wittgenstein Review.

Talk Title

The Odd Couple: later Wittgenstein and Quine on the Existence of Numbers

Talk Abstract

The aim of this talk is to sketch and contrast later Wittgenstein’s and Quine’s views on the perennial, and central, question in metaphysics and in the philosophy of mathematics: do numbers exist? Against the background of an example involving elementary arithmetic, I’ll maintain that they are indeed an odd couple: their views are both very different, but also related. I’ll argue that one of them (easy to guess who) holds that ‘the question contains a mistake’, so can’t even be meaningfully asked, let alone answered — which is disturbing news for both the realist and the antirealist projects in the contemporary philosophy of mathematics. Quine, on the other hand, contends that the answer to the question is affirmative. However, his reason to answer so is quite provocative as well, for it illustrates a pragmatic approach to metaphysical question. It relies on the contingent fact that mathematics is successfully applied — that it is, in fact, indispensable to science and everyday life. It is this perspective, the paramount role assigned to the applicability of mathematics, that he and Wittgenstein share.

About the Logic and Philosophy of Science Group

One of six departmental Research Interest Groups, the Logic and Philosophy of Science Group hosts talks on logic, general philosophy of science, and philosophy of the particular sciences, as well as talks in allied areas such as formal epistemology, decision theory, and the metaphysics of science.

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Venue

  • Jackman Humanities Building, Room 418
  • 170 St. George Street
    Toronto, Ontario M5R 2M8 Canada
  • Phone 416-978-3311

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