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The Classical Continuum without Points

Hellman, Geoffrey and Shapiro, Stewart (2012) The Classical Continuum without Points. In: UNSPECIFIED.

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Abstract

We develop a point-free construction of the classical one-
dimensional continuum, with an interval structure based on mereology and either a weak set theory or logic of plural quantification. In some respects this realizes ideas going back to Aristotle,although, unlike Aristotle, we make free use of classical "actual infinity". Also, in contrast to intuitionistic, Bishop, and smooth infinitesimal analysis, we follow classical analysis in allowing partitioning of our "gunky line" into mutually exclusive and exhaustive disjoint parts, thereby demonstrating the independence of
"indecomposability" from a non-punctiform conception. It is
surprising that such simple axioms as ours already imply the
Archimedean property and that they determine an isomorphism
with the Dedekind-Cantor structure of R as a complete, separable, ordered field. We also present some simple topological models of our system, establishing consistency relative to classical analysis. Finally, after describing how to nominalize our theory, we close with comparisons with earlier efforts related to our own.


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Item Type: Conference or Workshop Item (UNSPECIFIED)
Creators:
CreatorsEmailORCID
Hellman, Geoffreyhellm001@umn.edu
Shapiro, Stewart
Keywords: continuum, punctiform, non-punctiform, decomposable, indecomposable, real numbers, classical analysis
Subjects: Specific Sciences > Mathematics
Depositing User: Prof Geoffrey Hellman
Date Deposited: 07 Nov 2012 00:14
Last Modified: 10 Nov 2012 14:58
Item ID: 9409
Subjects: Specific Sciences > Mathematics
Date: November 2012
URI: https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/9409

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