Browsing All Posts filed under »Grinworthy Quotes«

Grinworthy Quotes (16): Self-promotion Edition

October 8, 2018 by

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I just had a co-authored (with Eamon Darnell) paper that’s based on a chapter of my dissertation (both titled “Is Hume’s Principle Analytic?” — link to preprint of the paper) accepted for publication (yay!). Near the end of the paper, we raise an issue that seems (to me at least) to have been under the surface […]

Grinworthy Quotes (15)

February 16, 2018 by

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Frege on Euclidean geometry and axioms, but also astrology and alchemy. From his Nachlass*. Now the question is whether to strike Euclidean or non-Euclidean geometry from the ranks of science and to put it alongside of Alchemy and Astrology as mummies. Where one only let himself toy with ideas, he need not take things so […]

Grinworthy Quotes 14

January 18, 2018 by

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In discussing the possibility of adopting category theory as a (the) foundations for mathematics, Jean-Pierre Marquis has this to say in his Stanford Encyclopedia article (2015): To use a well-known metaphor: from a categorical point of view, Neurath’s ship has become a spaceship. I hope there is a literature developing about Neurath’s spaceship.

Grinworthy Quotes 13

August 9, 2017 by

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Avicenna and Gentile da Foligno, woodcut (extract), edition of the Canon and its commentary by Gentile da Foligno, Venice 1520. Public domain via Wikipedia Commons     This gem: At Physics II.8, however, Avicenna had undertaken a detailed analysis and critique of the idea of void and found it empty… is on page 19 of Jon […]

Grinworthy Quotes (12)

July 24, 2016 by

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Here’s W. V. O. Quine discussing the fact that Frege didn’t adopt a type theoretic approach (like Russell and Whitehead’s) when faced with Russell’s paradox. Actually, it is not to be wondered that Frege did not think of this course, or, thinking of it, adopt it. It was by having all his classes at ground […]

Grinworthy Quotes (11)

November 16, 2015 by

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Here are the final three sentences of Alberto Coffa’s “Kant, Bolzano, and the Emergence of Logicism” (Journal of Philosophy, 74, 1982, p. 689): When concepts were finally wedded to the word, a priori knowledge turned from true in virtue of concepts to true in virtue of meanings—as Carnap put it—or true ex vi terminorum—as Wilfred […]

Grinworthy Quotes (10)

November 5, 2015 by

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Here’s other amusing line from Paul Benacerraf’s dissertation (Princeton, 1960, p. 182): It was in fact through [Cantor’s] interest in the infinite and in infinite numbers that he developed the theory of sets. The purpose was to make an honest woman of the infinite, a task held by most mathematicians of his time to be […]

Grinworthy Quotes (9)

October 8, 2015 by

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I know it’s been a while since I’ve posted one of these — I’ve been reading some fairly dry material recently. The following quote is at the very beginning of Paul Benacerraf’s unpublished PhD dissertation (Princeton, 1960) which I’m reading as part of my dissertation research. The quote is attributed to an unnamed undergraduate student. […]

Grinworthy Quotes (8)

June 5, 2015 by

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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, […]

Grinworthy Quotes (7)

March 14, 2015 by

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Here is John Burgess’s amusing description of Quine’s view of mathematical ontology as motivated by the indispensability argument, from “Mathematics and the Bleak House” (Phil. Math. 12, 2004). Quine…urged a very different sort of reason for accepting the existence of numbers (or other abstract mathematical entities to which numbers could be “reduced”).  According to Quine, […]

Grinworthy Quotes (6)

January 27, 2015 by

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Here is Pope Pius II (Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini) reporting, in his Commentaries, the response of (then Cardinal) Nicolas of Cusa to Pius unilaterally appointing cardinals (quoted in Watanabe, Concord and Reform, Ashgate, 2001, p. 10): The Cardinal of St. Peter (Cusanus)…Finally answered as follows: “…Now you ignore the ordinance of the synod and do ask […]

Grinworthy Quotes (5)

January 7, 2015 by

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Here is a quote from Moses Maimonides’ Guide for the Perplexed (M. Friedlaender trans., 1923, p. 263) that is particularly appropriate for the holiday season: Wine may be treated as food, if taken as such, but to form parties for the purpose of drinking wine together must be considered more disgraceful than the unrestrained conduct […]

Grinworthy Quotes (4)

December 9, 2014 by

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I apologize for taking so long to post another one of these. Here is Nicholas of Cusa (a.k.a. Cusano, a.k.a. Nikolaus von Kues) (1401–1464) on the primacy of intelligent people from De Concordantia Catholica. (This was quoted in Paul Sigmund’s Nicholas of Cusa and Medieval Political Thought, Harvard University Press, 1963, p. 132).   Almighty […]

Grinworthy Quotes (3)

October 30, 2014 by

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Sorry for the gap between quotes. Here is Giovanni Boccaccio on philosophers and marriage from The early lives of Dante (New York: Frederick Unger, 1963, pp. 24–5): Philosopher’s should leave [marriage] to wealthy fools, to noblemen, and to peasants, while they themselves find delight in philosophy, a far better bride than any other. I doubt […]

Grinworthy Quotes (2)

October 9, 2014 by

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Here is my favourite parable illustrating a serious problem with typed theories of truth, and drinking too much when having serious academic discussions, from Leon Horsten’s book  The Tarskian Turn (MIT, 2011). [S]uppose that you are convinced that on the subject of the history of Mayan civilization, Anna is extremely reliable. Suppose that even though […]

Grinworthy Quotes (1)

October 1, 2014 by

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Justin Caouette suggested to me that I start posting some of the amusing, and sometimes shocking philosophical quotations that I come across, and often share with him. This will be an on going series, though it is a matter of what I happen to be reading at any given time. The reason I have been […]

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