[lbo-talk] The Ontology of Two Chairs (was Reich on sex & religion)

[joanna bujes]

2+2 = 4 if you count as far as four. In some cultures, everything on the 
other side of three is infinity. In some cultures 2 + 2 = 4 has meaning 
only if you know what you're adding: two apples plus two oranges ? two 
male rabbits + two female rabbits? etc.... The "obviousness" of our 
mathematics is similar to the "obviousness" of our language. Clear and 
precise if you speak it.

Joanna

Jon Johanning wrote:


> On Dec 30, 2004, at 11:48 PM, joanna bujes wrote:
>
>> It's hard to know what you mean by "truths of mathematics." If these 
>> truths include the entities that we call numbers and that we claim to 
>> be able to manipulateby analogy with how we manipulate-numbers-as 
>> finite-quantities, then certainly these truths are culturally given.
>
>
> What I mean is this: is "2+2=4" true or false? If it is true, is it a 
> "culturally-given truth"? If you can find a way to make it false, show 
> it to me.
>
> You see, I'm a terribly simple-minded philosopher in the end.
>
> Jon Johanning // jjohanning at igc.org
> __________________________
> When I was a little boy, I had but a little wit,
> 'Tis a long time ago, and I have no more yet;
> Nor ever ever shall, until that I die,
> For the longer I live the more fool am I.
> -- Wit and Mirth, an Antidote against Melancholy (1684)
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