What follows is a brief (if I can manage it) statement of my philosophical position about mathematics. 2/
1. If it's clear that we're talking about addition of positive integers as normally understood, then yes of course.
4/
3. I know of no mathematical contexts in which people routinely declare that 2+2=5.
So does that mean that I agree after all that 2+2=4? 5/
I'm more drawn to formalism -- the view that mathematics is a kind of game where we play around with symbols according to certain rules. 7/
To be clear, I don't object to the notion of truth in mathematics, but for me it's always truth within a system. 10/
But in higher mathematics there's a technical sense in which integers *aren't* real numbers -- we say instead that they can be *identified* with real numbers. 21/
PS I don't think @kareem_carr would disagree with any of this, except perhaps minor details.