[lit-ideas] Re: Maths, music and World 3
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 6 Jul 2011 09:46:39 EDT
In a message dated 7/6/2011 9:16:51 A.M., donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx writes:
_http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/classical/features/the-endu
ring-myth-of-music-and-maths-2307387.html_
(http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/classical/features/the-enduring-myth-of-music-and-maths-2307
387.html)
----
It's a wonderful world.
Of course:
Do not multiply worlds beyond necessity.
Mundi non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.
I was reading a history of Italian literature. The problem started early
enough, in what the Italians call the 'duecento'. Up to that time, poets were
supposed to be _singers_. Sicilians were bad at singing (unlike the
Provencals). So, they found that it was best to think of a poet as a composer
('dictator') of verse, rather than its performer. Downhill since then. (In
more 'abstrat' terms, it is performing that makes music what it is; a score is
a possibility of performances -- performing can but belong to _this_
world).
Mill's philosophy of mathematics is my favourite. One orange, two oranges,
three oranges. Nothing abstract about counting. Incidentally, some Romance
speakers, again, got confused about that. They thought that 'norange', was
Italian for 'one orange' ("un'"). Therefore, they thought that the real
noun started with 'orange', rather than with the nasal sound before it
('norange'). The rest is history. Natural numbers (the only thing that exists
in
maths) belong then in this world, the only world that exists, incidentally.
The big problems are getting _value_ in *this* world too, and Grice managed
that ("The conception of value") -- his view can be seen as
_naturalistic_, in that while value itself is Not 'evidently' natural ("She
likes to die
her hair") utlimately it _is_ (via higher-order bouletic iterations: "She
is not a blonde, but she wished she were -- she values blonde in stuff" --
in Griceian parlance: she is a non-natural blonde ('blonde-nn'). Mutatis
mutandis for all value-oriented epithets, like 'good' and 'terrific').
Cheers,
Speranza
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