{"id":2108,"date":"2025-11-15T15:06:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-15T15:06:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cful.letras.ulisboa.pt\/lancog\/?p=2108"},"modified":"2025-11-15T15:06:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-15T15:06:08","slug":"seminar-series-in-analytic-philosophy-2025-26-session-9","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cful.demiurgos.eu\/lancog\/seminar-series-in-analytic-philosophy-2025-26-session-9\/","title":{"rendered":"Seminar Series in Analytic Philosophy 2025-26: Session 9"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Prime Numbers and Periodical Cicadas: The Case for Mathematical Platonism?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Luca Caiti (LanCog, University of Lisbon)<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">21 November 2025, 16:00 (Lisbon Time \u2013 WET)<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Faculdade de Letras de Lisboa<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sala Mattos Rom\u00e3o [C201.J] (Departamento de Filosofia)<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Abstract:\u00a0<\/strong>In his \u201cAre There Genuine Mathematical Explanations of Physical Phenomena?\u201d (2005), Alan Baker proposed an indispensable mathematical explanation for a peculiar biological case: the prime-numbered life-cycles of North American periodical cicadas. Following his \u201cExplanatory Indispensability Argument\u201d (EIA), we should then be ontologically committed to mathematical entities. In this paper, I criticize that view on two main grounds. First, I show that both the alleged indispensability and the explanatory structure Baker offers are fundamentally flawed. In doing so, I draw upon recent biological findings and analyze the discussion in the scientific literature, including a new theory for the phenomenon in question\u2014the so-called \u201cinternal-clock theory\u201d. Accordingly, if we take the cicada case study and the EIA, it actually follows the exact opposite of what Baker argued: that his mathematical explanation is\u00a0<em>not\u00a0<\/em>indispensable and that we should\u00a0<em>not\u00a0<\/em>be committed to the existence of mathematical objects. Second, I examine the EIA\u2019s general stance and outline possible ways to reject it, regardless of<strong>\u00a0<\/strong>the indispensability of Baker\u2019s mathematical explanation. Consequently, we shouldn\u2019t endorse such an ontological commitment, even if Baker\u2019s mathematical explanation were indispensable\u2014let alone given that it is not.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Prime Numbers and Periodical Cicadas: The Case for Mathematical Platonism? Luca Caiti (LanCog, University of Lisbon) &nbsp; 21 November 2025, 16:00 (Lisbon Time \u2013 WET) Faculdade de Letras de Lisboa Sala Mattos Rom\u00e3o [C201.J] (Departamento de Filosofia) &nbsp; Abstract:\u00a0In his \u201cAre There Genuine Mathematical Explanations of Physical Phenomena?\u201d (2005), Alan Baker proposed an indispensable mathematical [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":4,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"federate","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2108","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cful.demiurgos.eu\/lancog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2108","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cful.demiurgos.eu\/lancog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cful.demiurgos.eu\/lancog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cful.demiurgos.eu\/lancog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cful.demiurgos.eu\/lancog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2108"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cful.demiurgos.eu\/lancog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2108\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2109,"href":"https:\/\/cful.demiurgos.eu\/lancog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2108\/revisions\/2109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cful.demiurgos.eu\/lancog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cful.demiurgos.eu\/lancog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cful.demiurgos.eu\/lancog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}