Subscribe:
RSS feed
A group of bloggers discussing philosophical ideas as well as the profession of philosophy
Browsing All posts tagged under »Grinworthy«
Grinworthy Quotes (16): Self-promotion Edition
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 Aaron Thomas-Bolduc
Comments Off on Grinworthy Quotes (15)
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 Aaron Thomas-Bolduc
Comments Off on Grinworthy Quotes 14
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 Aaron Thomas-Bolduc
Comments Off on Grinworthy Quotes 13
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 (11)
November 16, 2015 by Aaron Thomas-Bolduc
Comments Off on Grinworthy Quotes (11)
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 Aaron Thomas-Bolduc
Comments Off on Grinworthy Quotes (10)
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 Aaron Thomas-Bolduc
Comments Off on Grinworthy Quotes (9)
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 Aaron Thomas-Bolduc
Comments Off on 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, […]
Grinworthy Quotes (7)
March 14, 2015 by Aaron Thomas-Bolduc
Comments Off on Grinworthy Quotes (7)
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 (5)
January 7, 2015 by Aaron Thomas-Bolduc
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 […]
Books by Contributors
A Philosopher's Take 
October 8, 2018 by Aaron Thomas-Bolduc
Comments Off on Grinworthy Quotes (16): Self-promotion Edition