[lit-ideas] Re: Can You Imagine 2 + 2 = 5?
- From: palma@xxxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 20 Nov 2007 08:31:45 -0500 (EST)
whta imagination is is not clear in these debates.
To test your intuitions: is it enough to state "I imagine now that 2+2
is 5" to make itthe case that I imagined *it*?
On Mon, 19 Nov 2007
Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx wrote:
> McEvoy recalls one of the questions for his course in Oxford analytic
> philosophy of mind -- and the foundations of Hilbertian finitist programme
> before
> Goedel, with a special reference to Frege and Cantor, and the wrongs of
> Intuitionism a la Dummett.
>
> Answer by McEvoy:
>
> "Yes, I can imagine 2 + 2 = 5. In fact, I imagine that every Friday
> afternoon, when I'm off from Oxford, and must do the shopping on the way to
> London."
>
> "You must have heard of the greengrocer's dozen. Well, by a reductio ad
> absurdum, I can show you -- but won't -- how 2 + 2 = 5 is indeed imaginable
> and
> imaginative, if you wish."
>
> "Give me a break. I spent a high fee to get a good learning into something
> apassionate, and all you can ask me is that shit?"
>
> "Yours respectfully, etc."
>
> MORALE: After Freddie waltzed the waltz (and read his bestselling book by
> Golancz), the Oxonian groupies were convinced to _heart_ that 'mathematics' is
> *analytic* a priori, and that Kant was dozed when he thought that 7 + 5 = was
> synthetic a priori.
>
> Plato was possibly wrong too, but then so was Pythagoras, and the rest of
> them before Ayer.
>
> So, as Wittgenstein showed on his trench-diaries (c. 1915) later typed as
> "Tractatus" and presented as his PhD. dissertation at U. Cantabrigensis,
> mathematics does not speak about the world.
>
> Wittgenstein was possibly enamoured of Frankie Plumpton Ramsey who _had_
> written alla Russell about the logicist foundations of algebra.
>
> In Oxford, we have to wait for the school of Dummett (Grice was once asked
> -- by Michael Wrigley, "Have you read Dummett on Frege"? -- he was his
> graduate
> student at UC/Berkeley --, getting the reply, "No, and I hope I won't" --
> Grice was more convivially interested when upon learning that Wrigley's alma
> mater was "Trinity", "We're just across the wall", said Grice, referring to
> the
> fact that Trinity is next to St. John's on St. Giles.
>
> --- The school of Dummett, under which I include E. J. Lemmon (died young I
> suppose of cancer?) to revive a sort of interest in formalistic philosophy.
> Lemmon's Logic is thus pretty formal. Too formal for my Oxonian taste!? :-(.
>
> Then there's David Bostock, who is very kind, and Oxonian, and has written a
> rather dull (but brilliant) book on ELEMENTARY Logic which is used in the
> Curriculum. The dull parts are the symbolic parts that Bostock _MUST_ present.
> The brilliancy is in his quotes, and references to much of the classical
> tradition -- Plato -- he is so familiar with.
>
> The history of logic has in MERTON COLLEGE a big thing. Indeed, "Merton
> logicians" were pretty interested in matters of calculus, etc. -- and they
> would
> be Leibnizians, if only German.
>
> And then there's NEWTON, who although he never made it to Oxford (he was a
> Lincolnshire shepherd), was studied at Oxford with reference to his treatment
> of Euclides.
>
> Loeb has two volumes in the history of mathematics in Greece, which I should
> get, since I love MATHEMATICS! (ed. by I. Thomas, an Oxonian).
>
> Cheers,
>
> JL
>
> J. L.
>
>
>
>
> ************************************** See what's new at http://www.aol.com
>
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