Grinworthy Quotes (8)

Here is another quote from John Burgess, this time from his book Fixing Frege (Princeton University Press: 2005). Anyone who reads logic/mathematics/philosophy of mathematics will have come across the phenomenon he’s talking about.

Now it is a common mathematical practice, called “abuse of language,” to omit to distinguish notationally between items that are distinct notionally, when the distinction makes no difference to the laws obeyed. Thus, though the positive integer +2, the rational number 2/1, and the real number 2.000 … are all distinct notionally, mathematicians generally do not distinguish them notationally… (p. 83)