10 ideas
23623 | Predicativism says only predicated sets exist [Hossack] |
Full Idea: Predicativists doubt the existence of sets with no predicative definition. | |
From: Keith Hossack (Knowledge and the Philosophy of Number [2020], 02.3) | |
A reaction: This would imply that sets which encounter paradoxes when they try to be predicative do not therefore exist. Surely you can have a set of random objects which don't fall under a single predicate? |
23624 | The iterative conception has to appropriate Replacement, to justify the ordinals [Hossack] |
Full Idea: The iterative conception justifies Power Set, but cannot justify a satisfactory theory of von Neumann ordinals, so ZFC appropriates Replacement from NBG set theory. | |
From: Keith Hossack (Knowledge and the Philosophy of Number [2020], 09.9) | |
A reaction: The modern approach to axioms, where we want to prove something so we just add an axiom that does the job. |
23625 | Limitation of Size justifies Replacement, but then has to appropriate Power Set [Hossack] |
Full Idea: The limitation of size conception of sets justifies the axiom of Replacement, but cannot justify Power Set, so NBG set theory appropriates the Power Set axiom from ZFC. | |
From: Keith Hossack (Knowledge and the Philosophy of Number [2020], 09.9) | |
A reaction: Which suggests that the Power Set axiom is not as indispensable as it at first appears to be. |
23628 | The connective 'and' can have an order-sensitive meaning, as 'and then' [Hossack] |
Full Idea: The sentence connective 'and' also has an order-sensitive meaning, when it means something like 'and then'. | |
From: Keith Hossack (Knowledge and the Philosophy of Number [2020], 10.4) | |
A reaction: This is support the idea that orders are a feature of reality, just as much as possible concatenation. Relational predicates, he says, refer to series rather than to individuals. Nice point. |
23627 | 'Before' and 'after' are not two relations, but one relation with two orders [Hossack] |
Full Idea: The reason the two predicates 'before' and 'after' are needed is not to express different relations, but to indicate its order. Since there can be difference of order without difference of relation, the nature of relations is not the source of order. | |
From: Keith Hossack (Knowledge and the Philosophy of Number [2020], 10.3) | |
A reaction: This point is to refute Russell's 1903 claim that order arises from the nature of relations. Hossack claims that it is ordered series which are basic. I'm inclined to agree with him. |
23626 | Transfinite ordinals are needed in proof theory, and for recursive functions and computability [Hossack] |
Full Idea: The transfinite ordinal numbers are important in the theory of proofs, and essential in the theory of recursive functions and computability. Mathematics would be incomplete without them. | |
From: Keith Hossack (Knowledge and the Philosophy of Number [2020], 10.1) | |
A reaction: Hossack offers this as proof that the numbers are not human conceptual creations, but must exist beyond the range of our intellects. Hm. |
23621 | Numbers are properties, not sets (because numbers are magnitudes) [Hossack] |
Full Idea: I propose that numbers are properties, not sets. Magnitudes are a kind of property, and numbers are magnitudes. …Natural numbers are properties of pluralities, positive reals of continua, and ordinals of series. | |
From: Keith Hossack (Knowledge and the Philosophy of Number [2020], Intro) | |
A reaction: Interesting! Since time can have a magnitude (three weeks) just as liquids can (three litres), it is not clear that there is a single natural property we can label 'magnitude'. Anything we can manage to measure has a magnitude. |
23622 | We can only mentally construct potential infinities, but maths needs actual infinities [Hossack] |
Full Idea: Numbers cannot be mental objects constructed by our own minds: there exists at most a potential infinity of mental constructions, whereas the axioms of mathematics require an actual infinity of numbers. | |
From: Keith Hossack (Knowledge and the Philosophy of Number [2020], Intro 2) | |
A reaction: Doubt this, but don't know enough to refute it. Actual infinities were a fairly late addition to maths, I think. I would think treating fictional complete infinities as real would be sufficient for the job. Like journeys which include imagined roads. |
23221 | The brain, and all the mental events within it, consists entirely of sensitive and rational matter [Cavendish] |
Full Idea: Sensitive and rational matter …makes not only the Brain, but all Thoughts, Conceptions, Imaginations, Fancy, Understanding, Memory, Remembrance, and whatsoever motions are in the Head or Brain. | |
From: Margaret Cavendish (Philosophical Letters [1664], p.185), quoted by Matthew Cobb - The Idea of the Brain 2 | |
A reaction: Judging by the date of this, and that she is a Cavendish, the influence of Hobbes must be strong, which was brave in 1664. A very strong statement of reductive physicalism, making sure that nothing is left out. |
16764 | The soul conserves the body, as we see by its dissolution when the soul leaves [Toletus] |
Full Idea: Every accident of a living thing, as well as all its organs and temperaments and its dispositions are conserved by the soul. We see this from experience, since when that soul recedes, all these dissolve and become corrupted. | |
From: Franciscus Toletus (Commentary on 'De Anima' [1572], II.1.1), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 24.5 | |
A reaction: A nice example of observing a phenemonon, but not being able to observe the dependence relation the right way round. Compare Descartes in Idea 16763. |