[lit-ideas] Can You Imagine 2 + 2 = 5?
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2007 12:39:52 EST
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.
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