A naturalist account of the limited, and hence reasonable, effectiveness of mathematics in physics

TL;DR

This paper proposes a naturalist conception of mathematics to explain its limited yet effective role in physics, emphasizing the unity of the natural world.

Contribution

It introduces a naturalist framework for understanding mathematics' effectiveness in physics, aligning mathematical concepts with the naturalistic worldview.

Findings

Mathematics' effectiveness is limited but reasonable within a naturalist perspective.

A naturalist account explains the success of mathematics in physics without invoking non-natural entities.

The conception aligns mathematical practice with the natural unity of the universe.

Abstract

The aim of this essay is to propose a conception of mathematics that is fully consonant with naturalism. By that I mean the hypothesis that everything that exists is part of the natural world, which makes up a unitary whole.