Combining Texts

Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'On the Principles of Indiscernibles' and 'Language,Truth and Logic'

unexpand these ideas     |    start again     |     choose another area for these texts

display all the ideas for this combination of texts

---

1 idea

6. Mathematics / C. Sources of Mathematics / 6. Logicism / a. Early logicism

5202	Maths and logic are true universally because they are analytic or tautological [Ayer]
	Full Idea: The principles of logic and mathematics are true universally simply because we never allow them to be anything else; …in other words, they are analytic propositions, or tautologies.
	From: A.J. Ayer (Language,Truth and Logic [1936], Ch.4)
	A reaction: This is obviously a very appealing idea, but it doesn's explain WHY we have invented these particular tautologies (which seem surprisingly useful). The 'science of patterns' can be empirical and a priori and useful (but not tautological).