47 ideas
7278 | Words of wisdom are precise and clear [Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu)] |
7281 | Don't even start, let's just stay put [Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu)] |
7282 | Disagreement means you do not understand at all [Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu)] |
7284 | If you beat me in argument, does that mean you are right? [Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu)] |
9935 | Mathematical truth is always compromising between ordinary language and sensible epistemology [Benacerraf] |
13412 | Obtaining numbers by abstraction is impossible - there are too many; only a rule could give them, in order [Benacerraf] |
13413 | We must explain how we know so many numbers, and recognise ones we haven't met before [Benacerraf] |
9912 | There are no such things as numbers [Benacerraf] |
9901 | Numbers can't be sets if there is no agreement on which sets they are [Benacerraf] |
13411 | If numbers are basically the cardinals (Frege-Russell view) you could know some numbers in isolation [Benacerraf] |
9151 | Benacerraf says numbers are defined by their natural ordering [Benacerraf, by Fine,K] |
13891 | To understand finite cardinals, it is necessary and sufficient to understand progressions [Benacerraf, by Wright,C] |
17904 | A set has k members if it one-one corresponds with the numbers less than or equal to k [Benacerraf] |
17906 | To explain numbers you must also explain cardinality, the counting of things [Benacerraf] |
9898 | We can count intransitively (reciting numbers) without understanding transitive counting of items [Benacerraf] |
17903 | Someone can recite numbers but not know how to count things; but not vice versa [Benacerraf] |
9897 | The application of a system of numbers is counting and measurement [Benacerraf] |
9900 | For Zermelo 3 belongs to 17, but for Von Neumann it does not [Benacerraf] |
9899 | The successor of x is either x and all its members, or just the unit set of x [Benacerraf] |
8697 | Disputes about mathematical objects seem irrelevant, and mathematicians cannot resolve them [Benacerraf, by Friend] |
8304 | No particular pair of sets can tell us what 'two' is, just by one-to-one correlation [Benacerraf, by Lowe] |
9906 | If ordinal numbers are 'reducible to' some set-theory, then which is which? [Benacerraf] |
13415 | An adequate account of a number must relate it to its series [Benacerraf] |
9907 | If any recursive sequence will explain ordinals, then it seems to be the structure which matters [Benacerraf] |
9908 | The job is done by the whole system of numbers, so numbers are not objects [Benacerraf] |
9909 | The number 3 defines the role of being third in a progression [Benacerraf] |
9911 | Number words no more have referents than do the parts of a ruler [Benacerraf] |
8925 | Mathematical objects only have properties relating them to other 'elements' of the same structure [Benacerraf] |
9938 | How can numbers be objects if order is their only property? [Benacerraf, by Putnam] |
9910 | Number-as-objects works wholesale, but fails utterly object by object [Benacerraf] |
17927 | Realists have semantics without epistemology, anti-realists epistemology but bad semantics [Benacerraf, by Colyvan] |
9936 | The platonist view of mathematics doesn't fit our epistemology very well [Benacerraf] |
9903 | Number words are not predicates, as they function very differently from adjectives [Benacerraf] |
9904 | The set-theory paradoxes mean that 17 can't be the class of all classes with 17 members [Benacerraf] |
9905 | Identity statements make sense only if there are possible individuating conditions [Benacerraf] |
7289 | Do not try to do things, or to master knowledge; just be empty [Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu)] |
23403 | You know you were dreaming when you wake, but there might then be a greater awakening from that [Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu)] |
7285 | Did Chuang Tzu dream he was a butterfly, or a butterfly dream he was Chuang Tzu? [Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu)] |
7277 | The perfect man has no self [Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu)] |
7286 | To see with true clarity, your self must be irrelevant [Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu)] |
7279 | If words can't be defined, they may just be the chirruping of chicks [Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu)] |
23404 | Words are for meaning, and once you have that you can forget the words [Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu)] |
20239 | Unlike us, the early Greeks thought envy was a good thing, and hope a bad thing [Hesiod, by Nietzsche] |
7283 | Great courage is not violent [Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu)] |
7280 | As all life is one, what need is there for words? [Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu)] |
7288 | Go with the flow, and be one with the void of Heaven [Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu)] |
7287 | Fish forget about each other in the pond and forget each other in the Tao [Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu)] |