The Philosophers' Cocoon

A safe and supportive forum for philosophers.

Owned & Moderated by Marcus Arvan (University of Tampa)

Contact: marvan@ut.edu

Blog mission & moderation policy

IMPORTANT NOTE on how to ensure anonymity in commenting
Job-Market Reporting Thread (2025-26)
Job-Market Discussion Thread (2025-26)

recent posts

about

Norms for mathematical symbols in papers?

In our most recent "how can we help you?" thread, a reader asks:

I'm a new grad student, and I'm wondering about the use of mathematical symbols like φ or Δ in analytic philosophy, like when papers say things like "for some proposition p that holds a disposition d to do φ under circumstances c…"

Is there an agreed-upon set of industry standards for when to use what symbol, or is it totally up to you? I've noticed that people like to use "w" for worlds, for example – is that a standard that you'll get frowned on for violating, or is it just easy to remember?

I do think using w is expected in the possible worlds case, but I'm not sure what other norms there are.

What do readers think?

Posted in

3 responses to “Norms for mathematical symbols in papers?”

  1. Go With Your Gut

    For the most part I think the norms are pretty fluid. There are some very common tendencies: actions tend to be φ, worlds tend to be w, etc. But come to think of it just the other day I was reading a prominent book about laws of nature that talks about various possible worlds using ‘U’. I didn’t think anything of it.
    At the end of the day, I don’t think there are any clear and agreed upon standards and I certainly don’t think you’ll be frowned upon if you deviate slightly from what people tend to do. Just pick symbols and letters that you think are intuitive — there’s a reason that propositions tend to be ‘p’, contexts tend to be ‘c’, dispositions tend to be ‘d’, and so on.

    Reply
  2. Logician

    Short answer: yes, there are standard-ish notations.
    Long answer: For context, I work on logic but I’m a mathematician by training. There are somewhat standard notations, but you’ll probably get what they are when you are ready to write a paper. On the other hand, there might be multiple standards, and you will have to choose one, or how to mix multiple standards. (For example, modal logic there are multiple logics with multiple names, and some names refer to multiple logics: CK refers to (at least) three different logics as far as I know.)

    Reply
  3. Dirk Schlimm

    Over time, research areas tend to develop some conventions, but at the end of the day it’s up to you to abide by them or to break with them. There might be good reasons for both sides.
    Allow me to plug a recent open-access paper of mine on the topic, which discusses various motivations for the use of particular symbols (in mathematics): https://philpapers.org/rec/SCHWMS-5

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Discover more from The Philosophers' Cocoon

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading