Penelope Maddy facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Penelope Maddy
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Maddy in 2004
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| Born | July 4, 1950 |
| Education | Princeton University (PhD, 1979) |
| Era | Contemporary philosophy |
| Region | Western philosophy |
| School | Analytic philosophy |
| Institutions | University of California, Irvine |
| Thesis | Set Theoretical Realism (1979) |
| Doctoral advisor | John P. Burgess |
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Main interests
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Philosophy of mathematics |
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Notable ideas
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Set-theoretic realism (also known as naturalized Platonism), mathematical naturalism |
Penelope Maddy (born July 4, 1950) is an American philosopher. She is a respected professor at the University of California, Irvine. Professor Maddy is famous for her important ideas in the philosophy of mathematics. This field explores big questions about numbers and math. She has studied ideas like mathematical realism, which is about whether math ideas are real, and mathematical naturalism, which connects philosophy to how science works.
Her Education and Career
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Penelope Maddy earned her Ph.D. degree from Princeton University in 1979. Her main project for this degree was called Set Theoretical Realism. Her advisor, who guided her work, was John P. Burgess.
Before joining the University of California, Irvine, in 1987, she taught at other universities. These included the University of Notre Dame and the University of Illinois, Chicago.
In 1998, she was chosen as a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. This is a special honor for people who have done great work in their fields. In 2006, the German Mathematical Society gave her a Gauss Lectureship. This is a series of talks given by important mathematicians and scientists.
Her Philosophical Ideas
Penelope Maddy's early work explored the idea of mathematical realism. This is the belief that mathematical things, like numbers and sets, are real. They exist independently of our minds. She supported the view of another philosopher, Kurt Gödel. He thought that mathematics describes a true world that we can understand using our intuition.
Maddy suggested that some mathematical things, like sets, could be concrete. This means they could have a real effect on things. For example, when you see three cups on a table, you also see the "set of three cups." She used ideas from cognitive science and psychology to support this. She noted that just as we learn to see objects, we also learn to see sets of objects.
Later, in the 1990s, Maddy's ideas changed. She moved towards a view called "naturalism." This idea suggests that science is our best way to understand the world. So, philosophers should use scientific methods in their own studies. Maddy believed that science should not be judged by rules outside of science itself.
However, Maddy saw mathematics as separate from other sciences. She thought that mathematics should follow its own rules and goals. This means that some traditional philosophical questions about math might not be important. She believed that some puzzles in philosophy happen because we use language in ways it wasn't meant for.
She has also spent time studying how set theorists agree on axioms. Axioms are basic rules or truths that are accepted without proof. She focused on those axioms that go beyond the standard system called ZFC.
Selected Books
- Realism in Mathematics, published in 1990.
- Naturalism in Mathematics, published in 1997.
- Second Philosophy, published in 2007.
- Defending the Axioms, published in 2011.
- The Logical Must, published in 2014.
- What do Philosophers Do? Skepticism and the Practice of Philosophy, published in 2017.
- A Plea for Natural Philosophy and Other Essays, published in 2022.
See also
- Cabal (set theory)
Images for kids
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Maddy in 2004
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Maddy as a high school student in 1968
