FOM: objectivity, postmodernism, multiculturalism, feminist etc.
RTragesser at compuserve.com
Sun Jan 11 02:06:19 EST 1998
Dear Eva/Reuben Hersh:
There are quotes such as these, but there are also
numerous quotes from you (as for example on FOM)
in which you insist on the uncertainty of mathematics,
the inconclusive character of all "proofs" and results.
You also insist on the necessity for consensus, an
apriori condition for mathematics. This seems to entail the
apriori impossibility of someone being right but unappreciated,
even treated woth hostility by the seat of consensus.
There is a larger vision here, perhaps, which
is not getting across.
What at least I would like is some effort on your
part to reconcile your various claims.
Take the observations Simpson is picking up on,
for example, and reconcile them with your claims about
One quewstion answered would help: reply to Feferman's
review of Lakatos on the point that Feferman makes against
Lakatos, that there are ends to guesswork, there are important
moments of conclusiveness and closure.
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