Anybody,
I have Hersh's book, now, and have been reading around in it. It brought to
mind the following question.
How is it that we know that, If A belongs to B, and B belongs to C, than A
belongs to C. Does it come from our experience? Or does it come from our
language, or neural organization, or something else about us. Or, as Rosen
might have it, it is the result of mapping the latter upon the former in some
way.
Around the turn of the centrury, there were some people who argued that the
answer to all the previous questions was No. Mathematics, logic, etc. stood
between thse two other ways of knowing, which were identified with realism and
idealism. These folks (possibliy including russell) believed that math belong
to a short list of mental thingies that were "neutral" to the distinction
between realism and idealism.
can anybody remember what these family of neutral things was called or who
called them "neutral"?
Nick
Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
Clark University ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
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