First published Tue Sep 25, 2007; substantive revision Tue Sep 26, 2017
If mathematics is regarded as a science, then the philosophy of
mathematics can be regarded as a branch of the philosophy of science,
next to disciplines such as the philosophy of physics and the
philosophy of biology. However, because of its subject matter, the
philosophy of mathematics occupies a special place in the philosophy
of science. Whereas the natural sciences investigate entities that are
located in space and time, it is not at all obvious that this also the
case of the objects that are studied in mathematics. In addition to
that, the methods of investigation of mathematics differ markedly from