18084
|
When successive variable values approach a fixed value, that is its 'limit' [Cauchy]
|
|
Full Idea:
When the values successively attributed to the same variable approach indefinitely a fixed value, eventually differing from it by as little as one could wish, that fixed value is called the 'limit' of all the others.
|
|
From:
Augustin-Louis Cauchy (Cours d'Analyse [1821], p.19), quoted by Philip Kitcher - The Nature of Mathematical Knowledge 10.4
|
|
A reaction:
This seems to be a highly significan proposal, because you can now treat that limit as a number, and adds things to it. It opens the door to Cantor's infinities. Is the 'limit' just a fiction?
|
4761
|
The 'error theory' of morals says there is no moral knowledge, because there are no moral facts [Mackie, by Engel]
|
|
Full Idea:
Mackie's 'error theory' of ethics says that if a fact is something that corresponds to a true proposition, there are actually no moral facts, hence no knowledge of what moral statements are about.
|
|
From:
report of J.L. Mackie (Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong [1977]) by Pascal Engel - Truth §4.2
|
|
A reaction:
Personally I am inclined to think that there are moral facts (about what nature shows us constitutes a good human being), based on virtue theory. Mackie is a good warning, though, against making excessive claims. You end up like a bad scientist.
|