Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Thinking About Mathematics', 'Philosophy and Scientific Image of Man' and 'The Impossibility of Superdupervenience'

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21 ideas

1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 5. Aims of Philosophy / c. Philosophy as generalisation
21829 Philosophy aims to understand how things (broadly understood) hang together (broadly understood) [Sellars]
5. Theory of Logic / D. Assumptions for Logic / 2. Excluded Middle
8729 Intuitionists deny excluded middle, because it is committed to transcendent truth or objects [Shapiro]
6. Mathematics / A. Nature of Mathematics / 3. Nature of Numbers / b. Types of number
8763 The number 3 is presumably identical as a natural, an integer, a rational, a real, and complex [Shapiro]
6. Mathematics / A. Nature of Mathematics / 3. Nature of Numbers / h. Reals from Cauchy
18249 Cauchy gave a formal definition of a converging sequence. [Shapiro]
6. Mathematics / B. Foundations for Mathematics / 1. Foundations for Mathematics
8764 Categories are the best foundation for mathematics [Shapiro]
6. Mathematics / B. Foundations for Mathematics / 5. Definitions of Number / f. Zermelo numbers
8762 Two definitions of 3 in terms of sets disagree over whether 1 is a member of 3 [Shapiro]
6. Mathematics / B. Foundations for Mathematics / 7. Mathematical Structuralism / a. Structuralism
8760 Numbers do not exist independently; the essence of a number is its relations to other numbers [Shapiro]
8761 A 'system' is related objects; a 'pattern' or 'structure' abstracts the pure relations from them [Shapiro]
6. Mathematics / C. Sources of Mathematics / 6. Logicism / d. Logicism critique
8744 Logicism seems to be a non-starter if (as is widely held) logic has no ontology of its own [Shapiro]
6. Mathematics / C. Sources of Mathematics / 7. Formalism
8749 Term Formalism says mathematics is just about symbols - but real numbers have no names [Shapiro]
8750 Game Formalism is just a matter of rules, like chess - but then why is it useful in science? [Shapiro]
8752 Deductivism says mathematics is logical consequences of uninterpreted axioms [Shapiro]
6. Mathematics / C. Sources of Mathematics / 10. Constructivism / b. Intuitionism
8753 Critics resent the way intuitionism cripples mathematics, but it allows new important distinctions [Shapiro]
6. Mathematics / C. Sources of Mathematics / 10. Constructivism / c. Conceptualism
8731 Conceptualist are just realists or idealist or nominalists, depending on their view of concepts [Shapiro]
6. Mathematics / C. Sources of Mathematics / 10. Constructivism / d. Predicativism
8730 'Impredicative' definitions refer to the thing being described [Shapiro]
7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 2. Reduction
6550 Reduction requires that an object's properties consist of its constituents' properties and relations [Sellars]
7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 3. Levels of Reality
16062 A necessary relation between fact-levels seems to be a further irreducible fact [Lynch/Glasgow]
7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 5. Supervenience / c. Significance of supervenience
16061 If some facts 'logically supervene' on some others, they just redescribe them, adding nothing [Lynch/Glasgow]
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 6. Physicalism
16060 Nonreductive materialism says upper 'levels' depend on lower, but don't 'reduce' [Lynch/Glasgow]
16064 The hallmark of physicalism is that each causal power has a base causal power under it [Lynch/Glasgow]
12. Knowledge Sources / C. Rationalism / 1. Rationalism
8725 Rationalism tries to apply mathematical methodology to all of knowledge [Shapiro]