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21570 | Numbers are just verbal conveniences, which can be analysed away [Russell] |
Full Idea: Numbers are nothing but a verbal convenience, and disappear when the propositions that seem to contain them are fully written out. | |
From: Bertrand Russell (Is Mathematics purely Linguistic? [1952], p.301) | |
A reaction: This is the culmination of the process which began with his 1905 theory of definite descriptions. The intervening step was Wittgenstein's purely formal account of the logical connectives. |