The last chapter of my “big book” [Mathematics: Form and Function] deals with the philosophy of mathematics, with the hope of perhaps reviving this moribund field. My claim was that too many philosophers of mathematics pay too little heed to what there really is in mathematics. This applies in particular to Wittgenstein and Lakatos, but for now I take on the biggest living target. My learned and articulate friend Van Quine has claimed that ontology is served by observing that “to be” is to be existentially quantified. I disagree, and I also doubt if Van realizes that the existential quantifier is a left adjoint–an important observation, again due to Lawvere. (1992, p. 120)
Sums up the problem I confronted beginning my Masters.
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