The Applicability of

Mathematics in Science:
Indispensability and
Ontology
Sorin Bangu
University of Bergen, Norway

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 © Sorin Bangu 2012
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this
publication may be made without written permission.
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save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence
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in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published 2012 by
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 For Laura and Chippy

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9780230_285200_01_prexii.indd vi 8/6/2012 10:39:32 AM
 Contents

Series Editor’s Preface x

Acknowledgements xii

1 Introduction: The Question 1

Part I Naturalism, Indispensability and

Posit Realism 13
2 Naturalism: Science as the Measure of All Things 15
2.1 Introduction 15
2.2 Naturalism, realism and causation 16
2.3 Ontology and science 21
2.4 Regimentation and ontological commitment 26
2.5 Conclusion 32

3 Holism 33
3.1 Introduction 33
3.2 Confirmational holism 34
3.3 Unapplied mathematics and mathematical practice 41
3.4 Conclusion 47

4 Posit Realism 49
4.1 Introduction 49
4.2 Fictionalism 49
4.3 Posit realism: ‘swelling ontology to simplify theory’ 59
4.3.1 Ontology historicized? 63
4.3.2 Posits v. abbreviations 65
4.3.3 The realism of the Indispensability Argument 66
4.4 Indispensabilist posit realism and scientific realism 69
4.5 Conclusion 72

Part II The Vantage Point: Mathematics in Science 77

5 Standard and Non-standard Applications 81
5.1 Introduction 81
5.2 Standard applications 82

vii

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 viii Contents

5.2.1 Fruits, roots, semantics and metaphysics 82

5.2.2 Weighing 84
5.2.3 Thinking outside the box 85
5.2.4 A tale of two rocks 87
5.3 Non-standard applications: discovering new
elementary particles 90
5.3.1 The omega-minus prediction 91
5.3.2 The positron prediction 95
5.3.3 DN e-predictions 97
5.3.4 The Identification Principle 99
5.3.4.1 Anomaly 100
5.3.4.2 Interaction 101
5.3.4.3 Summary 102
5.3.5 A new kind of prediction? 102
5.3.6 Discovery strategies 104
5.4 Conclusion 108

6 Mathematics and Scientific Discovery 110

6.1 Introduction 110
6.2 Wigner’s and Steiner’s puzzles 111
6.3 Steiner’s argument 113
6.4 Anthropocentrism 117
6.5 Two criticisms 123
6.6 Definabilism and anthropocentrism 128
6.7 Conclusion 132

7 Wigner’s Puzzle Revisited 133

7.1 Introduction 133
7.2 Solutions 135
7.2.1 The ‘many failures’ solution 136
7.2.2 The ‘fudging’ solution 137
7.2.3 The ‘statistical’ solution 137
7.2.4 The ‘empirical origins’ solution 138
7.2.5 Improving the ‘empirical origins’ solution:
indirect applicability 139
7.3 Conclusion: the puzzle in crossfire 141

Part III Explanation and Mathematical Realism 145

8 Inference to the Best Mathematical Explanation 147
8.1 Introduction 147
8.2 The explanationist strategy 147

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 Contents ix

8.2.1 Mathematical explanations 152

8.2.2 Four desiderata 154
8.2.2.1 ‘Simplicity’ 154
8.2.2.2 ‘Nominalization’, ‘Indispensability’
and ‘Explanation’ 155
8.2.2.3 Why the cicada (example) doesn’t fly 157
8.3 The banana game 162
8.3.1 Some clarifications 167
8.3.2 Hopes and troubles for the nominalist 168
8.3.3 New hopes 169
8.3.4 New troubles 171
8.4 Conclusion 173

9 Explanation, Holism, and Ontological Commitment:

The Objection from Scientific Practice 174
9.1 Introduction 174
9.2 Holism and scientific practice 175
9.3 Too small to believe in: the case of atoms 178
9.4 Idealizations 182
9.4.1 Ineliminable idealizations 184
9.4.2 Singularities and fluctuations 189
9.5 The ‘open question’ issue 192
9.6 Conclusion: confirmation, still holistic
after all these years 196

10 Concluding Remarks 198

Notes 202

Bibliography 233

Index 247

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 Series Editor’s Preface

The intention behind this series is to offer a new, dedicated publishing

forum for the kind of exciting new work in the philosophy of science
that embraces novel directions and fresh perspectives. To this end, our
aim is to publish books that address issues in the philosophy of science
in the light of these new developments, including those that attempt to
initiate a dialogue between various perspectives, offer constructive and
insightful critiques, or bring new areas of science under philosophical
scrutiny.
Sorin Bangu’s well-argued and provocative new book clearly fulfils
the series’ remit. The issue of the applicability of mathematics to sci-
ence has long been a major concern of not just philosophers, but also
of scientists and mathematicians themselves. To a certain extent, recent
discussions of this issue can be traced back to Wigner’s famous claim
regarding mathematics’ ‘unreasonable effectiveness’ in representing
physical phenomena. Bangu draws together these considerations with
those that argue that mathematics offers more than just a representa-
tional framework and that insist that mathematical objects are indis-
pensable to science. Thus he articulates a novel form of mathematical
realism that is informed by an appropriately naturalistic stance and he
skillfully deploys a combination of subtle philosophical arguments and
detailed scientific case studies to defend it.
In particular, Bangu draws on what he calls the ‘Discovery Argument’
to the effect that eliminating mathematics from science is ill advised
since it would deprive the scientist of an effective motor behind scientific
progress. He also lays out the various features of Wigner’s claim, effec-
tively drawing the sting of the apparent puzzle as to how mathematics
can be so effective. And in the context of the apparent indispensability
of mathematics, he puts forward the case that his form of realism offers
the best explanation of the role of mathematics in science.
In various respects, then, this book represents an innovative approach
that not only tackles a range of well-known but still problematic issues
regarding the applicability and indispensability of mathematics, but
develops an entirely new position within, and perspective on, these
debates. Furthermore, it does so in the context of both detailed case
studies from physics, illuminating the role of mathematics in some
of the most striking predictions of elementary particle physics, for

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 Series Editor’s Preface xi

example, and of illustrative examples drawn from game theory. In this

manner Bangu pulls the discussions away from some of the hackneyed
examples that are used again and again in the literature and opens up
space for new insights and ways forward.
This is precisely what we want from a book in the New Directions
series and we are sure that Bangu’s work will come to be regarded as a
major contribution to the debate.
Steven French
Professor of Philosophy of Science
University of Leeds

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 Acknowledgements

I am grateful to Steven French for his generous invitation to contribute

to this series, to Anjan Chakravartty for his wise suggestions on the
initial book proposal, and to Priyanka Gibbons, my patient and sup-
portive editor.
Margaret Morrison, Robert Batterman, Jim Brown, Alasdair Urquhart
and Mark Steiner have been positive influences on me over the years,
and I would like to thank them for their encouragement and advice.
As I detail below, some of the material in this book is based on posi-
tions and arguments I put forward in a number of papers published
in the past five or six years. On occasion I depart from the way I first
presented some of these ideas, and I surely hope that the small changes
are for the better. Elsevier, Oxford University Press, Springer, Taylor &
Francis, and University of Chicago Press kindly granted me permission
to use these published materials here.
Sections of Chapter 5 are borrowed from my article ‘Reifying
Mathematics? Prediction and Symmetry Classification’ Studies in History
and Philosophy of Modern Physics 39 (2008): 239–58. A number of people
commented, in writing or in conversation, on these arguments, and I’d
like to thank them all: Katherine Brading, Otavio Bueno, Craig Callender,
Alan Baker, P. Kyle Stanford, Ranpal Dosanjh, Chris Pincock, Michele
Ginammi and the two anonymous referees for the journal. Chapter 6
draws on ‘Steiner on the Applicability of Mathematics and Naturalism’
Philosophia Mathematica 3(14) (2006): 26–43. Patricia Marino, Robert
Thomas and two anonymous referees have provided me with helpful
suggestions. Mark Steiner deserves thanks once again for his generous
help in turning a draft of the paper I sent to him by email into a jour-
nal article. Chapter 7 contains some material from ‘Wigner’s Puzzle
for Mathematical Naturalism’ International Studies in the Philosophy of
Science 23(3): 245–63 (October 2009). Mark Janoff, Penelope Maddy,
Susan Vineberg, James McAlister, as well as the referees for this journal
commented on the drafts of this article, and I am indebted for that.
Chapter 8 is mostly borrowed from two sources: ‘Indispensability and
Explanation’, forthcoming in British Journal for the Philosophy of Science,
and ‘Inference to the Best Explanation and Mathematical Realism’, pub-
lished by Synthese 160 (2008): 13–20. I presented versions of the first

xii

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 Acknowledgements xiii

paper in various places (Leeds, Amsterdam, Seattle and Cambridge), and

I wish to thank the following philosophers for suggestions and criti-
cisms: Juha Saatsi, Alan Baker, Jacob Busch, Mark Colyvan, Michael
Liston, Arthur Fine, Bill Talbott, Andrea Woody, Alison Willie, Emily
Grosholz, Kevin Brosnan, Alex Broadbent, Michael Potter, Luca
Incurvati, Paul Dicken, Florian Steinberger, Alex Manafu, Davide Rizza
and Teddy Seidenfeld. The anonymous referees for this journal have
been very helpful and deserve thanks as well. The second paper ben-
efited from the journal referees’ criticism, conversations with Russell
Marcus and Kaave Lajevardi, as well as email correspondence with Alan
Baker and Mary Leng. Sections 9.5.1 and 9.5.2 in Chapter 9 are based
on ‘Understanding Thermodynamic Singularities. Phase Transitions,
Data and Phenomena’ from Philosophy of Science 76(4): 488–505 (2009)
(© 2009 by the Philosophy of Science Association, all rights reserved).
Some of the figures also appear in my ‘On the Role of Bridge Laws in
Inter-theoretic Relations’ Philosophy of Science 78(5): 1108–19 (2011)
(© 2011 by the Philosophy of Science Association, all rights reserved).
These papers benefited from suggestions, criticism and conversations
with Chuang Liu, Paul Humphreys, Craig Callender, Alex Rueger, James
Overton, Nic Fillion, Sorin Costreie, Axel Gelfert, Roman Frigg, Jeremy
Butterfield, Eleanor Knox, Anouk Barberousse, Cyrille Imbert, Sam
Schindler and Dragos Bigu.
The material in the first four chapters (and a good deal of Chapters
5 and 9) has not been published previously, but its origin is my lecture
notes for the Philosophy of Mathematics course I taught in 2008–10
at University of Cambridge, Department of History and Philosophy of
Science. I am grateful to John Forrester and Tim Lewens for including
it in the curriculum, and to my students for stoically suffering through
it. My interest in Quine’s philosophy has led me to foray into Carnap’s
thinking, whose work I had a chance to begin exploring during a
seminar taught by William Demopoulos at the University of Western
Ontario.
I am also delighted to express my gratitude for the encouragement
of a few people not directly involved with this work, but whose sup-
port made a difference: Colin Howson, Erin and Pierre Asselin, Helga
Varden, Shelley Weinberg, Hugh Chandler, Joe Spino and Zach Horne.
‘Finally, I thank the anonymous referees of the manuscript for many
useful suggestions (although, needless to say, I’m entirely responsible
for the final version.)’

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9780230_285200_01_prexii.indd xiv 8/6/2012 10:39:33 AM
 1
Introduction: The Question

Suppose we are asked to draw up a list of things we take to exist. Certain

items seem unproblematic choices, while others (such as God) are likely
to spark controversy. In what follows I set the grand theological theme
aside and ask a less dramatic question: should mathematical objects
(numbers, sets, functions, etc.) be on this list? In philosophical jargon
this is the ‘ontological’ question, as formulated for mathematics. It asks
whether we ought to include mathematicalia in our ontology. The goal
of this work is to answer this question in the affirmative.
Since I tackle this question from a particular angle – by reflecting on
the applicability of mathematics to natural science – I should begin by
admitting that it is not immediately evident how these two issues are
related. Claiming that they are connected is at odds with most philo-
sophical views on this subject, and perhaps even with common sense.
As a contemporary introduction to the subject summarizes,

[O]n the more traditional view that mathematical knowledge is a

priori, one would think that the last place one would look to justify
belief in mathematical entities would be an empirical enterprise like
science. (Shapiro 2000, p. 246)

Or, more directly, it has been said that the use of mathematics in sci-
ence is ‘not strictly relevant to the philosophical problem of the exist-
ence of numbers’ (Tennant 1997, p. 309; cited in Shapiro 2000, p. 246).
However, my purpose here is to articulate precisely the opposite view:
to argue that there is a sense in which the indispensable role of mathe-
matics in science provides very strong reasons for an affirmative answer
to the ontological question.

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 2 The Applicability of Mathematics in Science

Despite what the quotes above might suggest, such an approach is

not outlandish. It has a rather illustrious pedigree, being first intimated
by W. V. O. Quine more than fifty years ago and advocated by Hilary
Putnam as early as the 1970s. In fact, anyone familiar with the work
in this area would agree that this strategy has received a good deal of
attention over the last few decades.1 Why, then, yet another examina-
tion of it?
One reason is that Quine and Putnam themselves have only sketched
this position;2 another is that the version of the argument circulating
in the recent literature seems to me in urgent need of clarification in
several important respects. In particular, it appears disconnected from
the network of ideas from which it originally emerged – in essence,
the (Quinean) naturalist reaction to the (Carnapian-inspired) deflation
of ontological concerns which dominated analytical philosophy in the
first half of the twentieth century. Thus uprooted, the argument looks
rather weak, and invites a host of objections which seem more damag-
ing than they actually are.
Consequently, my aim here is twofold. First, I offer an exposition-
reconstruction of the argument taking into account the complexities
mentioned above. Second, I explore some new avenues to strengthen
it. More concretely, I parse the premises of the argument carefully, I
explain the standard objections and what motivates them, I present
and evaluate the available rebuttals (occasionally clarifying them) and,
finally, I address what I regard to be the outstanding criticisms. The
ambition of this work is to most completely articulate this philosophi-
cal project, in an attempt to persuade the reader that there is a perfectly
acceptable sense in which mathematical objects should be included in
our ontology.
The present investigation incorporates the ontological concern into
the larger picture of contemporary philosophy of science, conceiving it
as integrated within the ongoing debates on realism, explanation, pre-
diction, idealization and modelling, etc. Technicalities will appear from
time to time, both philosophical and scientific; I’ll even venture into
the history of science (especially of physics and mathematics). These
details, however, are deployed in the service of the more general objec-
tive of the book, namely to engage with one of the perennial metaphysi-
cal and epistemological conundrums about the nature of mathematics.

* * *

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 Introduction: The Question 3

To begin with the obvious, in most sciences today mathematical for-

malism is a tool of tremendous power and versatility. As is evident even
to the layman, mathematics provides not only concepts to represent
(describe, model) physical phenomena, but also the computational
machinery to calculate (infer) the consequences of scientists’ quantita-
tive assumptions.3
Thus, a question arises right away: is this all there is to say about the
role of mathematics in science? Even if this were so, interesting ques-
tions would still arise, along the lines of the famous puzzle advanced
by the celebrated theoretical physicist Eugene Wigner regarding the
‘unreasonable effectiveness’ of mathematics in representing physical
phenomena (Wigner 1967 [1960]).
Yet I believe there is more to say. By confining the relevance of math-
ematics to these representational and calculational/inferential roles,
the traditional construal of the mathematics–science relation neglects
other ways in which the mathematical formalism contributes to scien-
tific knowledge.
As is well known, Galileo prophesized that ‘the Book of Nature’ is writ-
ten in mathematical language, and since then mathematics has justly
been called ‘the language of science’. But this characterization also brings
with it the connotation of a rather passive role, exhausted by the uses of
mathematics in representation and calculation. As we’ll see, some philos-
ophers and scientists have already expressed dissatisfaction with this sug-
gestion. Building on this discontent, I aim to advance additional support
for the idea that we should also recognize an active role for mathematics
in science (Colyvan 2001). In essence, what needs to be done is to sub-
stantiate the thought that mathematics is more than a representational
language and a calculational device. The task, then, is to flesh out what
‘more’ means, and thus to provide reasons to amend the received view.
But let’s not lose sight of the main concern here, which is a ques-
tion of a metaphysical (ontological) nature: why should we be ‘realists’
about mathematics? Or, to begin introducing the terminology I’ll use
in what follows, what are the reasons to be ‘ontologically committed’ to
mathematical objects? Here is an overview of how I intend to support
the affirmative answer.
The book is divided into three parts. The material in Part I, ‘Naturalism,
Indispensability and Posit Realism’, is motivated by my conviction that
although a quite substantial amount of work has been devoted to clari-
fying the connection between the ontology and applicability themes,
important features of this relation have not been satisfactorily dealt
with. It is thus the aim of the three chapters making up this part to

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 4 The Applicability of Mathematics in Science

address them. Part II, ‘The Vantage Point: Mathematics in Science’, is a

discussion of a rather neglected aspect of the applicability of mathemat-
ics to science. Here the emphasis will be on the role of the formalism
in facilitating discovery in physics. While important in itself, this part
is also meant to complement the ideas advanced in Part III, in which
I explore the ontological consequences of the role of mathematics in
scientific explanation; hence its title, ‘Explanation and Mathematical
Realism’.
As I have said, although the connection between applicability and
ontology is only reluctantly recognized by tradition, the link is actually
quite direct. The most cogent reasons to date to answer the ontological
question in the affirmative, even in the view of sceptics, draw precisely
on considerations having to do with the applicability of mathematics to
science.4 Such an argument is now usually called the ‘(Quine–Putnam)
Indispensability Argument’ (IA henceforth). In brief, IA concludes that
a naturalist’s ontology should include mathematical entities, and this
claim is made on the basis of a certain view about the relation between
mathematics and science – a view according to which mathematics is
‘indispensable’ to formulating the best scientific accounts of the world.
Consequently, among the important issues to discuss, beginning with
Part I, will be what it means to be a ‘naturalist’ and what it is to be ‘indis-
pensable’ (and, if so, what mathematics is indispensable for). Despite the
fact that (I believe) a definitive proof of the contention that mathemat-
ics is indispensable eludes us, I take the variety of roles that mathemat-
ics plays in science, as detailed in Parts II and III, to constitute evidence
against the plausibility of the bold antirealist idea advanced a while ago
(by Hartry Field; see Field 1980), according to which mathematics can
be entirely avoided in the formulation of scientific theories.
An additional clarification of the explanation topic explored in Part
III is in order. My concern there will no longer be the original and
rather general version of the IA, but a recent and more specific variant
of it, which focuses on the role of mathematics in formulating explana-
tions of physical phenomena. This ‘new’ version, which I will call expla-
nationist, imports into the philosophy of mathematics the scientific
realist technique of arguing for the existence of an entity using the so-
called ‘inference to the best explanation’ (IBE) – that is, by showing that
certain entities must be invoked as the truth-makers of the explanans
appearing in the formulation of the best explanation of physical phe-
nomena. Although promising, this version of the argument needs fur-
ther elaboration and defence. It still remains to be examined whether
the implementation of the IBE idea can survive the sceptics’ objections,

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 Introduction: The Question 5

including those who accept the indispensability claim such as Penelope

Maddy (1997). My conclusion will be that this explanationist version of
the IA is robust enough to survive unscathed from the attacks mounted
against it.

* * *

Here is a more detailed plan of what follows. I begin, in Part I (Chapters

2, 3 and 4), by sketching my understanding of the general philosophi-
cal framework within which I will carry out this investigation: the
Quinean scientific naturalism. The aims of these opening chapters will
be to present this doctrine, to elucidate its connection to the issue of
mathematical existence, and to clarify my take on some of its conten-
tious aspects. To this effect, I rely on Quine’s writings, as well as on
the secondary literature explicating his naturalism. Everything I say
in this part is decisively influenced by his philosophy, so I’ll refer to
this view as ‘Quinean naturalism’. Yet I don’t claim that the naturalist
picture emerging in the end accurately reflects Quine’s own position
(indeed, sometimes I take the liberty to depart from, or reinterpret, it).5
This exposition-reconstruction is a necessary preliminary step for two
reasons.
First, almost every claim I’ll be making after this point will be
unlikely to appeal to those who don’t share this fundamental philo-
sophical credo. I thus acknowledge right from the beginning that these
explorations target a reader already in the grip of this Weltanschauung. I
will not try to proselytize, as I don’t think I am in the possession of any
(new) reason in favour of embracing naturalism – either more generally,
or in the specific form I advocate here.6
The second reason has to do with my dissatisfaction with the avail-
able accounts of the relation between (i) naturalism and confirmational
holism, on one hand, and (ii) naturalism and pragmatism, on the other.
Notably, Colyvan (2001, p. 37) hesitates to include holism among the
premises of the argument (though he seems inclined to accept it in the
end, but not as a necessary premise). More recently, others have either
flatly denied that the IA relies on holism (for example Dieveney 2007),
or didn’t find a place for holism in their version of the argument (see
Baker 2009), an omission which I take to be an indication that they
don’t see a crucial role for it either.
My view, however, is that holism is an unquestionably necessary
premise, and that the failure to appreciate this leaves the naturalist-
realist vulnerable to some immediate and powerful objections. The

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 6 The Applicability of Mathematics in Science

situation is complicated by the fact that there are authors (such as

Maddy 1997) who get the role of holism right, but maintain that it con-
flicts with naturalism. I don’t think that this is so, and I will devote
many pages to clarifying how holism actually features in the IA, as well
as to clarifying its deeper significance for this project (its connection
to the analytic–synthetic distinction). Thus, a pressing question arising
for the authors wishing to criticize the IA by denying holism is whether
they are also eager to revive the extinct distinction.
Another cloudy aspect of the IA I plan to deal with (especially in
Chapter 3) has to do with its pragmatic roots. In my take on the argu-
ment, this aspect is central. Since it is virtually absent in the recent
discussions,7 it will be important not only to clarify what kind of prag-
matism is relevant for the IA, but also to stress its relevance in defend-
ing the argument against one of the most powerful objections raised
against it (articulated, as we’ll see, in Field 1980).
Given the pivotal role I attribute to naturalism here, the realism to
which I subscribe is, obviously, a naturalist realism. However, the label
I wish to associate with my position is ‘posit realism’. That is, I believe
that the kind of mathematical realism grounded in indispensability
considerations is best defensible as a realism of posits. I hold the view
that the realism supported by my Quinean IA has a certain specificity,
which, it seems to me, was not sufficiently appreciated in the recent
discussions.8 Although a ‘posit’ is a key concept for Quine, it is a rather
problematic notion. Thus, a difficult task to undertake here will be to
clearly delineate how this kind of realism is similar to, and also subtly
different from, other doctrines – both realist and antirealist. One such
doctrine is platonism (the venerable metaphysical realist view accord-
ing to which numbers populate a non-spatiotemporal realm, causally
disconnected from the concrete world of tables and chairs);9 the other
is fictionalism, the conception that mathematical entities are, unlike the
electrons and genes, mere useful fictions.
Part II (Chapters 5 and 6, followed by the short Chapter 7) focuses
on matters epistemological, broadly conceived. More concretely, my
primary interest here will be to tackle two issues. First, I will illustrate
what I mean by the representational (descriptive, modelling, etc.) and
computational roles of mathematics. Then I will draw attention to the
fact that these two roles cover only one aspect of its employment in
scientific theorizing. By emphasizing an additional aspect – the role of
mathematics as an ‘engine of discovery’ (Steiner 2005) – I aim to sketch
a more complete account of the way in which mathematics has been
used in physics.

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 Introduction: The Question 7

One important feature of this approach is its closeness in spirit to the

working physicist’s concerns. In fact, it is directly inspired by Freeman
Dyson’s remarks:

One factor that has remained constant through all the twists and
turns of the history of physical science is the decisive importance
of mathematical imagination. Each century had its own particular
preoccupation in science and its own particular style in mathemat-
ics. But in every century in which major advances were achieved,
the growth in physical understanding was guided by a combination
of empirical observation with purely mathematical intuition. For a
physicist mathematics is not just a tool by means of which phenomena can
be calculated; it is the main source of concepts and principles by means
of which new theories can be created. (Dyson, 1964, p. 129; emphasis
added)

I take these thoughts to gesture toward the distinction between (what

I’ll call here) the standard view of applicability (the use of mathematics
to represent and calculate ‘phenomena’), and a non-standard conception
of applicability – the idea of seeing the mathematical formalism as a tool
in scientific discovery and theory generation. This fifth chapter also
articulates the link between the standard and the non-standard kinds of
applications, by assuming a naturalistic construal of the epistemic sub-
ject under scrutiny (‘the Physicist’). The link is, in essence, this: to use
mathematics in a non-standard way amounts to interpreting, in a sense
to be specified, the mathematical representations and models available
in order to conjecture new hypotheses. I illustrate this idea with a few
concrete examples, the most spectacular one being an episode from the
recent history of particle physics: the prediction, followed by the dis-
covery, of a new elementary particle precisely by interpreting certain
features of a mathematical scheme of classification. (This prediction, of
the so-called ‘omega-minus’ hadron, was made by Murray Gell-Mann
and Yuval Ne’eman in 1962 and confirmed experimentally in 1964.)
While the peculiarity of this prediction has occasionally been noticed
in the literature, a detailed treatment of the methodological problems
it poses has not been offered yet. By spelling out the characteristics of
this type of discovery, I aim to underscore the challenges that this use
of mathematics poses to more traditional scientific methodology, espe-
cially to the (still reigning) deductive-nomological view.
It is situations like this, in which certain non-standard, analogi-
cal manipulations of the formalism have yielded important physical

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 8 The Applicability of Mathematics in Science

insight, that provide my indispensabilist-realist with a new type of

response to the (Fieldian) dispensabilist-nominalist challenge. I will
refer to this response as the ‘Discovery Argument’: roughly speaking,
a ‘science without numbers’ is not desirable since a scientist working
in a mathematics-free theoretical framework is denied a very powerful
device to conjecture hypotheses, and thus make scientific advances.10
To this, the nominalists might reply that one needs evidence to
support the claim that such successful uses form a strategy, and aren’t
just a few isolated episodes. And, if that’s the case, they will point
out that the employment of this strategy is actually plagued by a
host of unexpected problems, such as those recently highlighted
by Mark Steiner (1998), and revolving around an intriguing thesis,
namely that the success of this discovery strategy ultimately under-
mines naturalism.
To confront this issue I turn (in Chapter 6) to an investigation of some
non-standard applications of mathematics. As we’ll see, the omega-
minus episode is but an illustration of a more general discovery pattern.
In fact, a closer look at the development of physics in the last hun-
dred years or so does reveal, as Dyson intimated above, that in addition
to discovering new physical entities, scientists also used mathematics
(more precisely: mathematical analogies) as a guide toward discovering
new equations and theories. Steiner has documented this non-standard
discovery strategy in great detail in a series of insightful papers (1989,
1995, 2005) and a landmark 1998 book, The Applicability of Mathematics
As a Philosophical Problem.
Steiner, however, has gathered evidence for the existence and effec-
tiveness of such a strategy not for its own sake, but in order to advance
a radical philosophical conclusion: based on his view of the nature
of mathematics (as being ‘anthropocentric’), he maintained that the
success of this strategy goes against the naturalist spirit of modern
science. (Note that for Steiner, ‘naturalism’ is synonymous with ‘anti-
anthropocentrism’.) The very fact that physicists appealed to this dis-
covery strategy is supposed to show that they abandoned naturalism
(while retaining the rhetoric of it). For this reason, a close inspection
of Steiner’s argument is imperative. The result of such investigation,
however, is that while the argument is valid, it is unsound. In my view,
one of its central premises – that mathematics has an ‘anthropocentric’
nature – is problematic. This is so, I claim, since it is entirely plausible
to conceive of (the subject matter of) mathematics in naturalistic, non-
anthropocentric terms. Furthermore, since Steiner’s point is a (more
sophisticated) descendent of Wigner’s ‘unreasonable effectiveness’

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 Introduction: The Question 9

famous puzzle, a brief examination of this latter challenge is also

in order. After I review the main attempts to deal with it (in a short
Chapter 7), I end up by agreeing with the authors who argued that
this difficulty can be satisfactorily evaded, once enough care is taken to
show the weakness of its premises.
Before I describe the concerns of Part III, let me draw attention to an
important aspect of my overall approach to the applicability theme. I
see this second part of the book, and especially Chapter 6, as an attempt
to unify the two disconnected branches of the philosophical debate on
the role of mathematics in science. If one branch is traditionally demar-
cated by concerns with the Indispensability Argument, the second has
developed (rather independently) around the Wigner/Steiner worry that
the effectiveness of mathematics in scientific theorizing is problematic.
In my view, the connection of these two directions is this: my indis-
pensabilist-realist counts the effectiveness of mathematics in making
physical discoveries as an additional reason for which one should not
want to eliminate mathematics from science (where the other reasons
are its effectiveness in representing the world, as well as in explanation
and prediction). But, again, this move comes at a price. If this Discovery
Argument is to be taken onboard by the realist, its appropriation requires
a rebuttal of the Steinerian type of challenge to naturalism.
If the first seven chapters outline the naturalist framework of the
IA, some of the roles of mathematics in science and the Discovery
Argument, Chapter 8 (the first of Part III) begins to examine the pros-
pects for deriving ontological consequences from another (indispensa-
ble) role of mathematics in science – namely, in scientific explanation.
The ontological commitment can be argued for in a more specific way
(as it happens, only vaguely suggested by Quine or Putnam), by devel-
oping the above-mentioned explanationist version of the original IA
(EIA).
In Chapter 8 I begin by reviewing the recent pro and con takes on this
argument. This analysis reveals the existence of a consensus (including
even many of the anti-realists): the cogency of the EIA depends on find-
ing persuasive scientific examples in which mathematics is genuinely
explanatory. I then look closely at some of the available examples of
mathematical explanations in science, and I argue that they are some-
what deficient (some irredeemably so, others just not entirely convinc-
ing); thus, new examples should be welcome. I advance such an example
(set up in probabilistic terms, and thus unlike the ones discussed so
far), inspired by von Neumann and Morgenstern’s (1947) theory of eco-
nomic behaviour. I establish a series of desiderata to be imposed on a

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 10 The Applicability of Mathematics in Science

mathematical explanation – that is, constraints to be satisfied if such an

explanation is to be able to support the realist cause. After presenting
the details of this new example, I show that it satisfies them.
But objections to the EIA have been raised, and Chapter 9 will deal
with what I take to be the most significant one, the argument from
‘scientific practice’. The objection was articulated originally by Maddy
(1992, 1997), and the main idea behind it is to draw the realist’s atten-
tion to the fact that the indispensability of an entity (to an explanation)
is not taken by scientists to be a sufficient reason to include that entity
in ontology (see 1997, II.6). Thus, despite what confirmational holism
recommends, the scientists typically don’t regard as confirmed all
assumptions appearing in a confirmed theory. Some of these assump-
tions and entities only play an instrumental role, and are not subject to
confirmation. In particular, although many idealized entities and struc-
tures appearing in science seem indispensable to formulating (the best)
explanations available, the scientists themselves don’t take the state-
ments featuring them as true (confirmed), and thus don’t take these
objects to exist.
This criticism has been addressed, but only sketchily (by Colyvan
2001, ch. 5, esp. 5.3.1). I believe there is more to say in realists’ favour,
and the main task of this chapter will be to provide a more complete
rebuttal of it. One central point I make develops along the following
lines. First, I agree that it is an important feature of scientific practice to
distinguish between claims and entities of purely instrumental nature,
and those that should be taken literally. But, second, I show that the
reason which allows the naturalist-realist to avoid such commitments
has no bearing on the commitment to mathematical entities. In other
words, I point out that, in an important sense, numbers, functions and
sets are not like (i.e., don’t enter the theory in the same way as) the
above-mentioned idealized objects – hence the objection simply misses
the target.
No doubt, a detailed analysis of each of the scientific cases invoked
by the sceptics is needed. What I offer here is a general rebuttal strategy
applied to one case study, which I am confident can be generalized.
I highlight an aspect of the issue that the objectors have overlooked,
namely that in the truly problematic cases these idealized entities are
not indispensable simpliciter. They are indispensable conditionally, or
only given certain assumptions about the explananda. And, since these
assumptions themselves are problematic, the genuine need for these
idealized objects is questionable too. I will set aside the rather familiar
and very much discussed cases of frictionless planes or dimensionless

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 Introduction: The Question 11

point masses, and focus on a more subtle case study from (quantum)
statistical mechanics. This example should satisfy the sceptic, as it
incorporates all the relevant features usually taken to raise problems
for realists. More concretely, I examine the so-called ‘thermodynamic
limit’ – the idealization of a statistical mechanical system as contain-
ing an infinite number of degrees of freedom, idealization seemingly
indispensable to the explanation as to why and how a system undergoes
a phase transition.
The brief Chapter 10 revisits the project and concludes the book.

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