humanities.philosophy.objectivism

On Fri, 29 Feb 2008 08:30:47 -0800, Agent Cooper
wrote:

>On Feb 29, 7:10 am, TC wrote:
>>
>> Certainties are possible in mathematics.
>
>I think it depends upon what the meaning of the word "in" is. If there
>are things I can be certain of in the real world then there are things
>I can be certain of in mathematics. But if you mean being impervious
>to error, well, that's not true either. I make mathematical errors all
>the time, think I don't, etc. Yes We Can, to screwing up our
>checkbooks.
>
>There is no such thing as apriori knowledge. See Philip Kitcher, The
>Nature of Mathematical Knowledge, for details.

I'm reading into this book now for the first time. Right into the
first page of the Introduction, I am amazed to see a book that
purports to be about epistemology *that actually contains epistemology
* -- "My goal is to understand how the mathematical knowledge of the
ordinary person and of the expert mathematician is obtained." Compare
this statement to the content of Intro. to Objectivist Epistemology,
which does not answer any question on how conceptual knowledge is
obtained, but seeks only to find out how concepts are formed. How
did the (implicit) concept get there? Blank-out. All Rand tells us is
that "the Objectivist theory of concepts" is one of Objectivist
epistemology's "cardinal elements" -- except a theory of
concept-formation is not a "theory of concepts." Nor is a theory of
concept-formation one of epistemology's "cardinal elements," such a
theory should come after the epistemological questions have been
answered and certainly not as an introduction.
--
We usually go over the top w/ our new found freedoms.
Unfortunately, her 'followers' are as radical as Pat
Robertson's. Discernment goes out the window.
- A youtube poster