[lit-ideas] Philosophy of Mathematics -- and its Oxford inexistence
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2007 11:58:17 EST
Thanks to Palma for his comments.
--- Very interesting.
I would count that as 'philosophy of mathematics'.
Mind, when Whitehead and Russell published their thing it was precisely
called _Principia Mathematica_, since 'logic' was only of secondary importance
to
them.
I don't think the Oxford Readings in Philosophy (once edited by G. J.
Warnock) had a volume on "The philosophy of Mathematics". They should.
Again, expect that if you are showing _that_ interest as an undergraduate in
the 1940s, they would dismiss you as 'not philosophical enough' and have you
converse with the 'foreigners' doing the thing at the Department of
Mathematics, rather than engaging in _the thing_ with Austin and 'friends'.
R. Paul, if patient, will say that J. L. Austin translated Frege's
Philosophy of Arithmetic, but that because he found his Monday mornings boring.
Cheers,
J. L.
"It just so happens that one (of the three I am able tocount)
philosophical interesting discoveries is a logical one (i.e. the demise
of the original Hilbert's program, beginning in the 1930's.)
That you may select not to count the demise of the major reductionist
program of the 20th century as of no philosophical interest is certainly
your right. I fail to see any argument for the position though.
For those of you not philosophically versed, Hilbert (of Hilbert's space
fame) is the person who thought it possible to reduce *all* of
mathematics to its finitistic subset of techniques, proofs, axiomatic
apparatus, und so weiter.
The finitistic approach is the most intuitive one, in my opinion, i.e.
mathematics is, in the sense of is reudicble to, counting finite number
of "bars" on a page.
It does not work, and it takes quite an array of arguments to show it
and to understand why."
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