Posted by
Miles Parker on
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/Re-Egging-that-chip-off-the-old-underbelly-tp4207090p4207216.html
On Dec 21, 2009, at 1:45 PM, glen e. p. ropella wrote:
> Nick sent me this privately, in the hopes of respecting the list
> members' time and attention, but upon my reply, he suggested I submit it
> to the list for your erudite ridicule:
Otherwise we would have missed another fascinating thread..I regret that I spend some much time dealing with OSGi plugin loading policies and PDE builds (don't even ask) that I don't get a chance to take a closer look at these often..anyway..
>
> Quoting Nicholas Thompson circa 09-12-19 12:01 PM:
>> (doing mathematics) : (formal proof) :: (doing computer science):
>> (programming) :: (doing philosophy) : (symbolic logic)
It's interesting, because you could also pair these in terms of rigor v. practicality, and get something like:
formal proof => doing mathematics
doing computer science => programming
symbolic logic => doing philosophy
IOTW, if Nick's analogy is about expertise and mine is about relevance, we can see that they are orthogonal. Of course, we already knew that :) but it's an interesting accidental discovery. (I guess there aren't any other kinds of discoveries..anyway..)
The more I think about it, the less clear it is too me what we mean by formalism altogether, which I guess is what you guys have been -- oh yeah, I see that Glen just said everything I could have hoped to say on this and more..never mind. :)
I do find the symbolic logic => philosophy connection to be the most challenging, in the sense that it sticks in my craw, but I don't know if I can justify why. I guess that we already see the targets of the other two to be inherent idealizations, whereas we pretend at least that philosophy can also embrace the real.
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