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Ideas for 'Intensional Logic', 'Human, All Too Human' and 'Critique of Pure Reason'

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3 ideas

6. Mathematics / B. Foundations for Mathematics / 3. Axioms for Geometry
Euclid's could be the only viable geometry, if rejection of the parallel line postulate doesn't lead to a contradiction [Benardete,JA on Kant]
     Full Idea: The possible denial of the parallel lines postulate does not entail that Kant was wrong in considering Euclid's the only viable geometry. If the denial issued in a contradiction, then the postulate would be analytic, and Kant would be refuted.
     From: comment on Immanuel Kant (Critique of Pure Reason [1781]) by José A. Benardete - Metaphysics: the logical approach Ch.18
6. Mathematics / B. Foundations for Mathematics / 4. Axioms for Number / a. Axioms for numbers
Kant suggested that arithmetic has no axioms [Kant, by Shapiro]
     Full Idea: Kant suggested that arithmetic has no axioms.
     From: report of Immanuel Kant (Critique of Pure Reason [1781], B204-6/A164) by Stewart Shapiro - Thinking About Mathematics 4.2
     A reaction: A hundred years later a queue was forming to spell out the axioms of arithmetic. The definitions of 0 and 1 always look to me more like logicians' tricks than profound truths. Some notions of successor and induction do, however, seem needed.
Axioms ought to be synthetic a priori propositions [Kant]
     Full Idea: Concerning magnitude ...there are no axioms in the proper sense. ....Axioms ought to be synthetic a priori propositions.
     From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Pure Reason [1781], B205/A164)
     A reaction: This may be a hopeless dream, but it is (sort of) what all philosophers long for. Post-modern relativism may just be the claim that all axioms are analytic. Could a posteriori propositions every qualify as axioms?