Approaching the abstract: Building blocks for an epistemology of abstract objects
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Søren Harnow Klausen
Søren Harnow Klausen (b. 1966) is a professor at the University of Southern Denmark 〈harnow@ifpr.sdu.dk〉. His research interests include epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of science. His publications include “Two notions of epistemic normativity” (2009); and “The notion of creativity revisited” (2010).
Abstract
Abstract objects are widely held to pose a formidable epistemological challenge. It has seemed mysterious to many how we can have access to such strange and intangible entities. The article considers five influential ways to meet the challenge: Transcendental arguments, the indispensability argument, insisting that we just are able to grasp abstract objects and that no further explanation is needed, abstractionist accounts, and ontological reduction. None of these approaches is by itself sufficient or completely convincing, but together they make out a strong cumulative case for the accessibility of abstract objects.
About the author
Søren Harnow Klausen (b. 1966) is a professor at the University of Southern Denmark 〈harnow@ifpr.sdu.dk〉. His research interests include epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of science. His publications include “Two notions of epistemic normativity” (2009); and “The notion of creativity revisited” (2010).
©[2013] by Walter de Gruyter Berlin Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Masthead
- Introduction
- Approaching the abstract: Building blocks for an epistemology of abstract objects
- The ideal as real and as purely intentional: Ingarden-based reflections
- Making sense together: A dynamical account of linguistic meaning-making
- An example of the “synthetic a priori”: On how it helps us to widen our philosophical horizons
- The generality of signs: The actual relevance of anti-psychologism
- Sensory imagination and narrative perspective: Explaining perceptual focalization
- The basic distinctions in Der Streit
- The Wolf: Ingarden to the narratological rescue. A few remarks on a messy situation within the theory of fiction
- Roman Ingarden's theory of reader experience: A critical assessment
- Varieties of intentional objects
- More than an attitude: Roman Ingarden's aesthetics
Articles in the same Issue
- Masthead
- Introduction
- Approaching the abstract: Building blocks for an epistemology of abstract objects
- The ideal as real and as purely intentional: Ingarden-based reflections
- Making sense together: A dynamical account of linguistic meaning-making
- An example of the “synthetic a priori”: On how it helps us to widen our philosophical horizons
- The generality of signs: The actual relevance of anti-psychologism
- Sensory imagination and narrative perspective: Explaining perceptual focalization
- The basic distinctions in Der Streit
- The Wolf: Ingarden to the narratological rescue. A few remarks on a messy situation within the theory of fiction
- Roman Ingarden's theory of reader experience: A critical assessment
- Varieties of intentional objects
- More than an attitude: Roman Ingarden's aesthetics
