7 ideas
| 12452 | Our dislike of contradiction in logic is a matter of psychology, not mathematics [Brouwer] |
| Full Idea: Not to the mathematician, but to the psychologist, belongs the task of explaining why ...we are averse to so-called contradictory systems in which the negative as well as the positive of certain propositions are valid. | |
| From: Luitzen E.J. Brouwer (Intuitionism and Formalism [1912], p.79) | |
| A reaction: Was the turning point of Graham Priest's life the day he read this sentence? I don't agree. I take the principle of non-contradiction to be a highly generalised observation of how the world works (and Russell agrees with me). |
| 12451 | Scientific laws largely rest on the results of counting and measuring [Brouwer] |
| Full Idea: A large part of the natural laws introduced by science treat only of the mutual relations between the results of counting and measuring. | |
| From: Luitzen E.J. Brouwer (Intuitionism and Formalism [1912], p.77) | |
| A reaction: His point, I take it, is that the higher reaches of numbers have lost touch with the original point of the system. I now see the whole issue as just depending on conventions about the agreed extension of the word 'number'. |
| 12454 | Intuitionists only accept denumerable sets [Brouwer] |
| Full Idea: The intuitionist recognises only the existence of denumerable sets. | |
| From: Luitzen E.J. Brouwer (Intuitionism and Formalism [1912], p.80) | |
| A reaction: That takes you up to omega, but not beyond, presumably because it then loses sight of the original intuition of 'bare two-oneness' (Idea 12453). I sympathise, but the word 'number' has shifted its meaning a lot these days. |
| 12453 | Neo-intuitionism abstracts from the reuniting of moments, to intuit bare two-oneness [Brouwer] |
| Full Idea: Neo-intuitionism sees the falling apart of moments, reunited while remaining separated in time, as the fundamental phenomenon of human intellect, passing by abstracting to mathematical thinking, the intuition of bare two-oneness. | |
| From: Luitzen E.J. Brouwer (Intuitionism and Formalism [1912], p.80) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] A famous and somewhat obscure idea. He goes on to say that this creates one and two, and all the finite ordinals. |
| 7628 | Broad rejects the inferential component of the representative theory [Broad, by Maund] |
| Full Idea: Broad, one of the most important modern defenders of the representative theory of perception, explicitly rejects the inferential component of the theory. | |
| From: report of C.D. Broad (Mind and Its Place in Nature [1925]) by Barry Maund - Perception Ch.1 | |
| A reaction: Since the supposed inferences happen much too quickly to be conscious, it is hard to see how we could distinguish an inference from an interpretation mechanism. Personally I interpret things long before the question of truth arises. |
| 10117 | Intuitonists in mathematics worried about unjustified assertion, as well as contradiction [Brouwer, by George/Velleman] |
| Full Idea: The concern of mathematical intuitionists was that the use of certain forms of inference generates, not contradiction, but unjustified assertions. | |
| From: report of Luitzen E.J. Brouwer (Intuitionism and Formalism [1912]) by A.George / D.J.Velleman - Philosophies of Mathematics Ch.6 | |
| A reaction: This seems to be the real origin of the verificationist idea in the theory of meaning. It is a hugely revolutionary idea - that ideas are not only ruled out of court by contradiction, but that there are other criteria which should also be met. |
| 6017 | Nomos is king [Pindar] |
| Full Idea: Nomos is king. | |
| From: Pindar (poems [c.478 BCE], S 169), quoted by Thomas Nagel - The Philosophical Culture | |
| A reaction: This seems to be the earliest recorded shot in the nomos-physis wars (the debate among sophists about moral relativism). It sounds as if it carries the full relativist burden - that all that matters is what has been locally decreed. |