I have briefly described the three main streams of present-day mathematical philosophy: formalism, Platonism, and intuitionism. I have made no secret of the fact that my sympathies lie strongly with the Platonistic view that mathematical truth is absolute, external, and eternal, and not based on man-made criteria; and that mathematical objects have a timeless existence of their own, not dependent on human society nor on particular physical objects. I have tried to make my case for this view in this section, in the previous section, and at the end of Chapter 3.
