Re: Kant and Hilbert
- From: wwilson <leon.winslow@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 19 Mar 2009 12:12:31 -0400
Hilbert thought that Kant was speaking about mathematics. He further thought that Kant was wrong.
One reason that most profesional mathematicians ignore philosophy is that modern math taakes so long to master that no philosooopher can possibly master both math and philosoophy. Conversely, no mathmeatician has time to master both subjects.
A similar break in understanding between physics and math. Up to the time of Hilbert, it was possible to master both subjects and many people did. Since then the two subjects have each grown so sophisticated that I doubt that there is a single person in the world who really understands both.
On Thu, 19 Mar 2009 10:10:45 -0400, Tim BandTech.com <tttpppggg@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Mar 19, 8:21 am, Frederick Williams <frederick.willia...@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Herehttp://www.oup.com/uk/catalogue/?ci=9780198505358I've just read
"Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason is widely taken to be the
starting point of the modern period of mathematics while David Hilbert
was the last great mainstream mathematician to pursue important
nineteenth cnetury(sic) ideas."
I don't know whether those are William Bragg Ewald's words or those of
an OUP blurb writer. What are the opinions of professional
mathematicians about those claims?
My amatuer opinion is that Kant does deserve great credit.
For instance in some of his writing space and time are coupled so
closely that the argument can be made that he is a direct precursor to
unified spacetime. This is a corrective of the full scoop that we give
Einstein in this department. Since there is not a single equation in
Kant's critique I don't think the review does justice by remaining in
the mathematical context. Kant seems more about reality as a genera
which has been split out into philosophy, mathematics, and physics as
modern day shards. We are caught as humans in reality and Kant does
his best to address this whereas two of the shards feel quite free to
dismiss this part of the problem.
Also many modern works do not bother with any scholium or careful
presentation anywhere near Kant's level so in their lacking in that
department we might argue that these modern works are built with these
older works in their foundation. How a modern Principia would differ
from Newton's is of interest, and how a modern full dissection like
Kant's critique would read might be important. Especially such burdens
placed upon quantum theory where many quantum workers divorce
themselves from philosophy is a curious ambiguity.
The accumulation of information has gone to such an extent that we
seem to have given up on philosophy. Yet we would not forsake logic
would we? Have we? I like to celebrate the problem as an open system
with some unworked and unconstructed parts. Under this paradigm
something fundamental has been overlooked so there is a slender hope
that the ambiguities could be lifted. I do think that this is the
proper spirit to work from.
- Tim
--
Science is a differential equation.
Religion is a boundary condition.
--Alan Turing
--
Using Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/mail/
.
- Follow-Ups:
- Re: Kant and Hilbert
- From: Tim Little
- Re: Kant and Hilbert
- References:
- Kant and Hilbert
- From: Frederick Williams
- Re: Kant and Hilbert
- From: Tim BandTech.com
- Kant and Hilbert
- Prev by Date: Short mathematical problem
- Next by Date: Re: Media. Should I use it in this case?
- Previous by thread: Re: Kant and Hilbert
- Next by thread: Re: Kant and Hilbert
- Index(es):
Relevant Pages
|
