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Reuben Hersh rhersh at math.unm.edu
Thu Jan 15 18:07:20 EST 1998


I must also disagree with your accusation that I "heap scorn"

on fom'ers.

I looked thru my book, and couldn't find any scorn at all.

As for fom as it is practised by the owners of this list, I was
almost unaware of it when I finished the book, hardly interested
in heaping schorn.

It looks to me like we have verbal confusion.  In my book I use
Lakatos term "foundatiohnism" for Frege, Hilbert and Brouwer--all
people who sought to repair or rebuild the foundations in a philosophical
sense, in order to recover the lost certainty of mathematical
knowledge.

I argue that this goal is impossible and unnecessary, and seek
to put forward a different philosophy, based closely on
what mathematitics really is in daily life, not on philosohical
presuppositions.

I understand that you don't agree with my philosophical proposals,
you are a Platyonist for N and agnostic for the rest.  Fine.

But don't confound what I meant by foundationaists and what you
mean by fom researchers.   

I have no criticism of fom'ers.

I think the foundationists philosophies are all outmoded and
needing something more true to life.

But no heaps of scorn, either way.

Reuben 



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