Thursday, May 7, 2020
Kant as Diamond Cutter
“He wished Kant were alive. Kant would have appreciated it.
That master diamond cutter.”
— Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance , Part III.
Kant’s “category theory” —
| “In the Transcendental Analytic, Kant deduces the table of twelve categories, or pure concepts of the understanding….
The categories must be ‘schematized’ because their non-empirical origin in pure understanding prevents their having the sort of sensible content that would connect them immediately to the objects of experience; transcendental schemata are mediating representations that are meant to establish the connection between pure concepts and appearances in a rule-governed way. Mathematical concepts are discussed in this context since they are unique in being pure but also sensible concepts: they are pure because they are strictly a priori in origin, and yet they are sensible since they are constructed in concreto . ” — Shabel, Lisa, “Kant’s Philosophy of Mathematics”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2016 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2016/entries/kant-mathematics/>. |
See also The Diamond Theorem and Octad.us.
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Wednesday, May 6, 2020
Identity Problem
The phrase “problem of identity” in the previous post suggests a search
for other instances of the phrase. That search yields a talk by Andrei Rodin:
A later book by Rodin echoes Vladimir Arnold‘s remark
that “mathematics is a part of physics.” (Rodin is a Russian
who apparently worships at the Church of Scientism.)
The Rodin talk is dated 19 November 2012.
For some very different philosophical remarks, by poet
Wallace Stevens, see the Log24 posts of 19 November 2012.
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“The Ship of Theseus”…
is a philosophical conundrum discussed this morning in the weblog of
David Justice.
A related statement of this “problem of identity,” from posts
in this weblog tagged “For Banff 2009” yesterday afternoon—
Remarks related to the ship of Theseus —
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