The epistemological argument is very simple. It is based on the idea that, according to Platonism, mathematical knowledge is knowledge of abstract objects, but there does not seem to be any way for humans to acquire knowledge of abstract objects. The argument for the claim that humans could not acquire knowledge of abstract objects proceeds as follows:

• (1) Humans exist entirely within space-time.
• (2) If there exist any abstract objects, then they exist entirely outside of space-time.
• (3) Therefore, it seems that humans could never acquire knowledge of abstract objects.

There are three ways for Platonists to respond to this argument. They can reject (1), they can reject (2), or they can accept (1) and (2) and explain why the very plausible sounding (3) is nonetheless false.

Platonists who reject (1) maintain that the human mind is not entirely physical and that it is capable of somehow forging contact with abstract objects and thereby acquiring information about such objects. This strategy was pursued by Plato and Gödel. According to Plato, people have immaterial souls, and before birth their souls acquire knowledge of abstract objects, so that mathematical learning is really just a process of recollection. For Gödel, humans acquire information about abstract objects by means of a faculty of mathematical intuition—in much the same way that information about physical objects is acquired through sense perception.

Platonists who reject (2) alter the traditional Platonic view and maintain that, although abstract objects are nonphysical and nonmental, they are still located in space-time; hence, according to this view, knowledge of abstract objects can be acquired through ordinary sense perceptions. Maddy developed this idea in connection with sets. She claimed that sets of physical objects are spatiotemporally located and that, because of this, people can perceive them—that is, see them and taste them and so on. For example, suppose that Maddy is looking at three eggs. According to her view, she can see not only the three eggs but also the set containing them. Thus, she knows that this set has three members simply by looking at it—analogous to the way that she knows that one of the eggs is white just by looking at it.

Platonists who accept both (1) and (2) deny that humans have some sort of information-gathering contact with abstract objects in the way proposed by Plato, Gödel, and Maddy; but these Platonists still think that humans can acquire knowledge of abstract objects. One strategy that Platonists have used here is to argue that people acquire knowledge of abstract mathematical objects by acquiring evidence for the truth of their empirical scientific theories; the idea is that this evidence provides reason to believe all of empirical science, and science includes claims about mathematical objects. Another approach, developed by Resnik and Shapiro, is to claim that humans can acquire knowledge of mathematical structures by means of the faculty of pattern recognition. They claim that mathematical structures are nothing more than patterns, and humans clearly have the ability to recognize patterns.

Another strategy, that of full-blooded Platonism, is based on the claim that Platonists ought to endorse the thesis that all the mathematical objects that possibly could exist actually do exist. According to Balaguer, if full-blooded Platonism is true, then knowledge of abstract objects can be obtained without the aid of any information-transferring contact with such objects. In particular, knowledge of abstract objects could be obtained via the following two-step method (which corresponds to the actual methodology of mathematicians): first, stipulate which mathematical structures are to be theorized about by formulating some axioms that characterize the structures of interest; and second, deduce facts about these structures by proving theorems from the given axioms.

For example, if mathematicians want to study the sequence of nonnegative integers, they can begin with axioms that elaborate its structure. Thus, the axioms might say that there is a unique first number (namely, 0), that every number has a unique successor, that every nonzero number has a unique predecessor, and so on. Then, from these axioms, theorems can be proven—for instance, that there are infinitely many prime numbers. This is, in fact, how mathematicians actually proceed. The point here is that full-blooded Platonists can maintain that by proceeding in this way, mathematicians acquire knowledge of abstract objects without the aid of any information-transferring contact with such objects. Put differently, they maintain that what mathematicians have discovered is that, in the sequence of nonnegative integers (by which is just meant the part or parts of the mathematical realm that mathematicians have in mind when they select the standard axioms of arithmetic), there are infinitely many prime numbers. Without full-blooded Platonism this cannot be said, because traditional Platonists have no answer to the question “How do mathematicians know which axiom systems describe the mathematical realm?” In contrast, this view entails that all internally consistent axiom systems accurately describe parts of the mathematical realm. Therefore, full-blooded Platonists can say that when mathematicians lay down axiom systems, all they are doing is stipulating which parts of the mathematical realm they want to talk about. Then they can acquire knowledge of those parts simply by proving theorems from the given axioms.

Ongoing impasse

Just as there is no widespread agreement that fictionalists can succeed in responding to the indispensability argument, there is no widespread agreement that Platonists can adequately respond to the epistemological argument. It seems to this writer, though, that both full-blooded Platonism and fictionalism can be successfully defended against all of the traditional arguments brought against them. Recall that Platonism and fictionalism agree on how mathematical sentences should be interpreted—that is, both views agree that mathematical sentences should be interpreted as being statements about abstract objects. On the other hand, Platonism and fictionalism disagree on the metaphysical question of whether abstract objects exist, and an examination of the foregoing debate does not provide any compelling reason to endorse or reject either view (though some reasons have proved plausible and attractive enough to persuade people to take sides on this question). In fact, humanity seems to be cut off in principle from ever knowing whether there are such things as abstract objects. Indeed, it seems to this writer that it is doubtful that a correct answer even exists. For it can be argued that the concept of an abstract object is so unclear that there is no objective, agreed-upon condition that would need to be satisfied in order for it to be true that there are abstract objects. This view of the debate is extremely controversial, however.