Volume 55, 1998
New Essays on the Philosophy of Michael Dummett
Peter Clark
Pages 51-63
Dummett's Argument for the Indefinite Extensibility of Set and Real Number
The paper examines Dummett's argument for the indefinite extensibility of the concepts set, ordinal, real number, set of natural numbers, and natural number. In particular it investigates how the indefinite extensibility of the concept set affects our understanding of the notion of real number and whether the argument to the indefinite extensibility of the reals is cogent. It claims that Dummett is right to think of the universe of sets as an indefinitely extensible domain but questions the cogency of the further claim that this fact raises an issue as to what sets or real numbers there are.