Home – Home – Jornals – Philosophy of Sciences 2026 number 1

The article considers the possibility of applying Karl Popper’s principle of falsification to mathematics. A common position is that the principle of falsification can only be applied to the empirical sciences, since statements not about the surrounding world are inherently unfalsifiable. The purpose of this article is to demonstrate that applying the principle of falsification to mathematics can be pragmatically interesting and feasible. The first part of the article discusses the principle of falsification itself and why the question of the falsifiability of mathematics is basically worthy of study. The second part presents an argument that the main cause for the apparent unfalsifiability and the lack of scientific status of mathematics is the implicit acceptance of traditional mathematical Platonism by researchers. The third part examines the possibility of employing abstrаction principles to transform traditional Platonism into a version of naturalism. By adopting the metaphysics and epistemology of such position, mathematics can be considered falsifiable on par with other sciences.