Combining Texts

Ideas for 'Mahaprajnaparamitashastra', 'Foundations without Foundationalism' and 'Conspectus libelli (book outline)'

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3 ideas

6. Mathematics / C. Sources of Mathematics / 6. Logicism / c. Neo-logicism
Logicism is distinctive in seeking a universal language, and denying that logic is a series of abstractions [Shapiro]
     Full Idea: It is claimed that aiming at a universal language for all contexts, and the thesis that logic does not involve a process of abstraction, separates the logicists from algebraists and mathematicians, and also from modern model theory.
     From: Stewart Shapiro (Foundations without Foundationalism [1991], 7.1)
     A reaction: I am intuitively drawn to the idea that logic is essentially the result of a series of abstractions, so this gives me a further reason not to be a logicist. Shapiro cites Goldfarb 1979 and van Heijenoort 1967. Logicists reduce abstraction to logic.
6. Mathematics / C. Sources of Mathematics / 6. Logicism / d. Logicism critique
Mathematics and logic have no border, and logic must involve mathematics and its ontology [Shapiro]
     Full Idea: I extend Quinean holism to logic itself; there is no sharp border between mathematics and logic, especially the logic of mathematics. One cannot expect to do logic without incorporating some mathematics and accepting at least some of its ontology.
     From: Stewart Shapiro (Foundations without Foundationalism [1991], Pref)
     A reaction: I have strong sales resistance to this proposal. Mathematics may have hijacked logic and warped it for its own evil purposes, but if logic is just the study of inferences then it must be more general than to apply specifically to mathematics.
6. Mathematics / C. Sources of Mathematics / 10. Constructivism / d. Predicativism
Some reject formal properties if they are not defined, or defined impredicatively [Shapiro]
     Full Idea: Some authors (Poincaré and Russell, for example) were disposed to reject properties that are not definable, or are definable only impredicatively.
     From: Stewart Shapiro (Foundations without Foundationalism [1991], 7.1)
     A reaction: I take Quine to be the culmination of this line of thought, with his general rejection of 'attributes' in logic and in metaphysics.