> this was presumably before people accepted mathematical concepts as being as real as anything else Maybe as "unreal as anything else" would be a more accurat

> this was presumably before people accepted mathematical concepts as being as real as anything else Maybe as "unreal as anything else" would be a more accurate way to put it. Mathematical realism and even any kind of Platonism have a lot of detractors. I think the attitude change was more due to what is now known as Logicism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logicism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logicism) and Formalism ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formalism_(philosophy_of_mathematics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formalism_(philosophy_of_mathe... ) when people realized that you did not need to appeal to the physical world to come up with useful things.