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15045
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The big issue since the eighteenth century has been: what is Reason? Its effect, limits and dangers? [Foucault]
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Full Idea:
I think the central issue of philosophy and critical thought since the eighteenth century has always been, still is, and will, I hope, remain the question: What is this Reason that we use? What are its historical effects? What are its limits and dangers?
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From:
Michel Foucault (Space, Knowledge and Power (interview) [1982], p.358)
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A reaction:
One can hardly deny the fairness of the question, but I hope that won't prevent us from trying to be rational. Maybe logicians do a better job of clarifying reason than the political and historical speculations of Foucault?
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15716
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If axioms and their implications have no contradictions, they pass my criterion of truth and existence [Hilbert]
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Full Idea:
If the arbitrarily given axioms do not contradict each other with all their consequences, then they are true and the things defined by the axioms exist. For me this is the criterion of truth and existence.
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From:
David Hilbert (Letter to Frege 29.12.1899 [1899]), quoted by R Kaplan / E Kaplan - The Art of the Infinite 2 'Mind'
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A reaction:
If an axiom says something equivalent to 'fairies exist, but they are totally undetectable', this would seem to avoid contradiction with anything, and hence be true. Hilbert's idea sounds crazy to me. He developed full Formalism later.
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