Object Absolutism: Implications for Empiricist and Psychologist Epistemology of Mathematical Statements

The study presented in this paper was conducted to ascertain the extent to which object absolutism as a theoretical presupposition affects the epistemology of mathematical statements as presented by empiricists and psychologists in the philosophy of mathematics. To achieve this objective, the method of content analysis was adopted for the study. The two schools above were randomly selected from the schools in the philosophy of mathematics. It was discovered in the course of the study that objects absolutism, as an exclusivist theoretical assumption, berates the contributions of the cognitive subject to knowledge claims and therefore promotes skepticism if empiricism were validated and solipsism if psychologism were adopted as foundations of mathematical statements. Hence, it was concluded that the way out of the quagmire created by object absolutism is to promote a foundational analysis that investigates the foundations of knowledge by presupposing knowing.