[lit-ideas] Principia Mathematica
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 25 Jan 2014 08:53:04 -0500 (EST)
In a message dated 1/25/2014 1:59:01 A.M. Eastern Standard Time,
john.mccreery@xxxxxxxxx writes:
I am particularly struck by that line, The kind of necessity proper to
mathematical demonstrations cannot be transferred to philosophy...
and I am struck by Principia Mathematica.
The idea behind Whitehead and Russell was that Logicism, a branch of
Philosophy, was to provide the grounds for Mathematics. In other words, I would
hold that it is a philosophical statement to issue:
i. The kind of necessity proper to mathematical demonstrations cannot be
transferred to philosophy.
Therefore, there is something contradictory about this:
ii. Philosophy tells us that the kind of necessity proper to mathematical
demonstrations cannot be transferred to philosophy.
McCreery entitled his post, "Shall we consider another philosopher?". Why
not philosophers? Grice/Strawson, in "In defense of a dogma", of
analyticity, regard that the kind of necessity proper to mathematical
demonstrations
is of the analytic type on which philosophers exceed! In his later career,
Grice, alla Kant, hoped to transfer "the kind of necessity proper to
mathematical demonstrations" (to use the phrase by this Belgian philosopher of
science), alla Spinoza, to ethics ("Aspects of Reason"): after all, there is
nothing more of the kind of necessity proper to mathematical demonstrations
than Kant's categorical imperative.
Granted, Grice would suggest that if we should consider another
philosopher, that should be Kantotle! (seeing that McCreery quotes from Ethica
Nichomachea).
Cheers,
Speranza
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