Re: Would it matter if ZF was inconsistent?

Chris Menzel <cmenzel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:

Indeed, so perhaps we can say that my original assertion was correct,
amdended along the lines of: "Proper Classes" is the only paper of hers
a substantial portion of which consists of technical mathematical logic.

This I can live with.

Maddy is by far my favourite philosopher of set theory. Pondering
venerable philosophical and metaphysical questions, the iterative
conception of set, and so on, is fine and swell, but, since there really
is nothing more in such things than we put there, we quickly reach a
point of diminishing returns, and our philosophising becomes essentially
arbitrary, unconstrained by anything we actually find in set
theory. Maddy's work is refreshing precisely because she takes into
account the mathematical content of set theory (as a highly fertile and
advanced field of mathematics), the intellectual concerns of set
theorists, the attitudes and ideas we can discern in their work,
etc. reducing very effectively this arbitrariness in philosophical
theoretising.

--
Aatu Koskensilta (aatu.koskensilta@xxxxxx)

"Wovon mann nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen"
- Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
.

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