Philosophy of Mathematics Today
23 January 2006 - 28 January 2006Aims
About one century ago, Hilbert, Poincaré, Russell and other celebrated mathematicians and logicians were involved in a famous debate on the nature of mathematics, which gave birth to the so-called foundational schools - logicism, intuitionism and formalism. Since then, the intertwining of conceptual analysis with specific technical results has marked the development of the philosophy of mathematics in the 20th century. Since the striking discoveries of Goedel and Turing in the thirties, however, the philosophy of mathematics has considerably widened its range and changed its emphasis, moving from logically oriented investigations to far more general issues, which touch epistemology, ontology, the relations between mathematics and natural sciences, and, more recently, between mathematics and computer science. This has considerably enlivened and enriched the discipline, making urgent and challenging the need for an updated point on the state of the art in the area. The aim of the present workshop is to create a fruitful interaction among mathematicians and philosophers by focussing on most recent problems and results of this borderline discipline.