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“The platonist metaphor assimilates mathematical enquiry to the investigations of the astronomer: mathematical structures, like galaxies, exist, independently of us, in a realm of reality which we do not inhabit but which those of us who have the skill are capable of observing and reporting on. The constructivist metaphor assimilates mathematical activity to that of the artificer fashioning objects in accordance with the creative power of the imagination.”
— Michael Dummett, British philosopher. He was, until 1992, Wykeham Professor of Logic at the University of Oxford, Truth and Other Enigmas, Harvard University Press, 1978, p.225.
