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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17555
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'One' can mean undivided and not a multitude, or it can add measurement, giving number [Aquinas]
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Full Idea:
There are two sorts of one. There is the one which is convertible with being, which adds nothing to being except being undivided; and this deprives of multitude. Then there is the principle of number, which to the notion of being adds measurement.
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From:
Thomas Aquinas (Quaestiones de Potentia Dei [1269], q3 a16 ad 3-um)
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A reaction:
[From a lecture handout] I'm not sure I understand this. We might say, I suppose, that insofar as water is water, it is all one, but you can't count it. Perhaps being 'unified' and being a 'unity' are different?
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