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Single Idea 12334

[filed under theme 6. Mathematics / A. Nature of Mathematics / 3. Nature of Numbers / a. Numbers ]

Full Idea

Apparently - and this is quite unlike old Greek times - there is no single unified definition of number.

Gist of Idea

There is no single unified definition of number

Source

Alain Badiou (Briefings on Existence [1998], 11)

Book Ref

Badiou,Alain: 'Briefings on Existence', ed/tr. Madarsz,Norman [SUNY 2006], p.126


The 30 ideas from Alain Badiou

The female body, when taken in its entirety, is the Phallus itself [Badiou]
Ontology is (and always has been) Cantorian mathematics [Badiou]
Logic is definitional, but real mathematics is axiomatic [Badiou]
We must either assert or deny any single predicate of any single subject [Badiou]
The modern view of Being comes when we reject numbers as merely successions of One [Badiou]
Numbers are for measuring and for calculating (and the two must be consistent) [Badiou]
There is no single unified definition of number [Badiou]
Each type of number has its own characteristic procedure of introduction [Badiou]
There is 'transivity' iff membership ∈ also means inclusion ⊆ [Badiou]
Topos theory explains the plurality of possible logics [Badiou]
Logic is a mathematical account of a universe of relations [Badiou]
There is no Being as a whole, because there is no set of all sets [Badiou]
The axiom of choice must accept an indeterminate, indefinable, unconstructible set [Badiou]
Consensus is the enemy of thought [Badiou]
Must we accept numbers as existing when they no longer consist of units? [Badiou]
Existence is Being itself, but only as our thought decides it [Badiou]
Philosophy has been relieved of physics, cosmology, politics, and now must give up ontology [Badiou]
The undecidability of the Continuum Hypothesis may have ruined or fragmented set theory [Badiou]
The primitive name of Being is the empty set; in a sense, only the empty set 'is' [Badiou]
If mathematics is a logic of the possible, then questions of existence are not intrinsic to it [Badiou]
Platonists like axioms and decisions, Aristotelians like definitions, possibilities and logic [Badiou]
In ontology, logic dominated language, until logic was mathematized [Badiou]
For Enlightenment philosophers, God was no longer involved in politics [Badiou]
The God of religion results from an encounter, not from a proof [Badiou]
Philosophy aims to reveal the grandeur of mathematics [Badiou]
Mathematics inscribes being as such [Badiou]
It is of the essence of being to appear [Badiou]
In mathematics, if a problem can be formulated, it will eventually be solved [Badiou]
Mathematics shows that thinking is not confined to the finite [Badiou]
All great poetry is engaged in rivalry with mathematics [Badiou]