Alex Koo (University of Toronto)
The Enhanced Indispensability Argument (EIA) for mathematical realism supposedly represents an improvement over its Quinean predecessor due to the replacement of confirmational holism with Inference to the Best Explanation (IBE) to infer realism. The assumption is that IBE can be used to infer that mathematical entities exist. I argue that this only works if we adopt a naive form of IBE, which Bas van Fraassen has shown to be unjustified. Scientific realists instead endorse a mature form of IBE, but I will show that this form cannot lead to mathematical realism, and thus the EIA is not enhanced at all.
