Aatu Koskensilta (
aatu.kos...@uta.fi) writes:
> There's something that I find rather puzzling. Floyd and Putnam,
> writing about the "notorious paragraph" in Wittgenstein about Gödel's
> theorems, say all manner of no doubt very sophisticated and profound
> philosophical things. Kreisel however, and I don't think there's any
> reason to think he's lying here, explains that this paragraph was the
> Old Witter's reaction to the introductory section of G's paper. After
> Kreisel explained the theorem, in terms of Turing machines and all that,
> the Big-W was perfectly satisfied, so we are told. This in some rambling
> piece of Big-K's or other. I simply can't -- and I must admit I just
> skimmed the exchange, so it's possible Putnam, Floyd, and their critics
> in fact bring up this point, and dismiss it with some clever flimlam --
> for the life of me understand what the point is of trying to come up
> with too-clever-by-half explanations of what Witters might have meant,
> given that he plainly says things that are absolutely bonkers, and we
> can't have that from the old Double-Vee, so he can't possibly mean what
> he plainly says. In his review of W's blather on these issues, Kreisel
> got it absolutely right, I posit. There's loads of interesting stuff
> about calculations and elementary arithmetic. There's nothing of
> interest to anyone on actual mathematics, for the very simple reason
> Wittgenstein didn't know any of it.
>
> I guess I could ask Floyd and Putnam. But where's the fun in that?
>
> --
> Aatu Koskensilta (
aatu.kos...@uta.fi)
>
> "Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen"
> - Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
Here is a JSTOR reference to Floyd and Putnam:
[1] Juliet Floyd and Hilary Putnam
A Note on Wittgenstein's "Notorious Paragraph"
About the Godel Theorem
The Journal of Philosophy
(2000) 97 (11):624-632
http://philpapers.org/rec/FLOANO
http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/2678455?uid=3739448&uid=2&uid=3737720&uid=4&sid=21101142015627
The 2nd url above gives a free preview of the opening page, which
quotes in full Wittgenstein's "notorious paragraph".
Here is a short paper, completely readable online, quoting that
Wittgenstein in full and commenting on Floyd and Putnam:
[2] Timm Lampert
Wittgenstein's "notorious paragraph" about the Godel Theorm
http://wab.uib.no/ojs/agora-alws/article/view/928/552
There is discussion of Wittgenstein's writing about Godel, and
mention of Floyd and Putman and others later:
[3] Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Wittgenstein's Phiosophy of Mathematics
3.6 Wittgenstein on Godel and Undecidable Mathematical Propositions
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wittgenstein-mathematics/#WitGodUndMatPro
--
David Libert
ah...@FreeNet.Carleton.CA