[FOM] Goedel on philosophy

[Alexei Angelides]

Goedel wrote about Kant, Husserl, Leibniz in some places, Russell,  
the ontological proof (pointed out by another), conventionalism in  
mathematics, the philosophy of physics and numerous other topics and  
figures that and who would be considered "philosophical". There are  
so many places in Goedel's works where philosophy crops up in one  
form or another that the best way to familiarize oneself with them is  
to look through the three volume:

_Kurt Goedel: Collected Works, vols. I-III_, eds. S. Feferman et. al.  
(Oxford, Oxford University Press).

A glance at the titles of the articles alone demonstrates his genuine  
philosophical thoughtfulness.

As for the idea of progress in philosophy, I am of the opinion that  
it is an illusion. There are certainly conceptual shifts, progress of  
a sort—witness the so-called "linguistic turn"—but that genuine  
philosophical questions have any genuine philosophical answers seems  
to me to make the category mistake of applying the aims and methods  
of the natural and mathematical sciences to an area that they cannot  
be so applied. This does not imply that philosophical questions do  
not become more precise as the methods used become more precise.  
Perhaps Goedel meant that philosophy now is like Babylonian  
mathematics then in the sense that it is only now beginning to  
flourish in its precision.

Alexei Angelides

On Mar 7, 2007, at 12:30 AM, Buckner wrote:

> Martin:
>>>
> As I thought subscribers to this list knew perfectly well, Goedel
> studied Kant in his youth, and in his later years studied Leibniz and
> then Husserl in his usual ultra-intensive manner.
>>>
>
> I didn't know he had studied Husserl.  Obviously he had read  
> Russell, as
> he wrote a paper on Russell.  But that, as far as I know, was his only
> philosophical work.
>
> What prompted my remark was the oddness of Godel's suggestion about
> philosophy.  Was his reading in philosophy wide, or was it confined to
> limited areas of philosophy?  The wider one's reading in philosophy,
> particularly from different periods, the gloomier you tend to get  
> about
> any sort of progress.
>
> In what sense did he mean that philosophy now (i.e. then in the  
> 20C) is
> like Bablylonian mathematics?
>
> He can't have meant that philosophy is a little researched science in
> its infancy, since philosophy is probably the most researched and
> written about subject in the world.
>
> Did he mean that there is no systematic approach to philosophy as in
> mathematics, where we start with propositions that cannot be  
> coherently
> denied, and move step by step with logical precision to deduce the
> objects of all possible knowledge.  But many systems of philosophy,
> particularly rationalist ones, have tried to take such a systematic
> approach.
>
> It's not clear to me what he meant by his statement.
>
>
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