Combining Texts

Ideas for 'Through the Looking Glass', 'Mathematics without Foundations' and 'Calculus Ratiocinator'

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

display all the ideas for this combination of texts


2 ideas

7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 3. Being / e. Being and nothing
I only wish I had such eyes as to see Nobody! It's as much as I can do to see real people. [Carroll,L]
     Full Idea: "I see nobody on the road," said Alice. - "I only wish I had such eyes," the King remarked. ..."To be able to see Nobody! ...Why, it's as much as I can do to see real people."
     From: Lewis Carroll (C.Dodgson) (Through the Looking Glass [1886], p.189), quoted by A.W. Moore - The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics 07.7
     A reaction: [Moore quotes this, inevitably, in a chapter on Hegel] This may be a better candidate for the birth of philosophy of language than Frege's Groundwork.
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 4. Anti-realism
You can't deny a hypothesis a truth-value simply because we may never know it! [Putnam]
     Full Idea: Surely the mere fact that we may never know whether the continuum hypothesis is true or false is by itself just no reason to think that it doesn't have a truth value!
     From: Hilary Putnam (Mathematics without Foundations [1967])
     A reaction: This is Putnam in 1967. Things changed later. Personally I am with the younger man all they way, but I reserve the right to totally change my mind.