FOM: Appeals to authority

[Lee J. Stanley]

Even though he was arguing "on my side" of the question,
I would like to suggest that appeals to authority by
Shipman (in this case to the intuitions of Cantor
and Hilbert) are on no solider philosophical ground
than appeals to other authorities (Poincare, etc.)
who would take the opposite view.

It is no different from saying that something is meaningless
because X, who is also an authority, doesn't understand it
and has come to the conclusion that she never will and ...
(oh, I'll leave out the generalization, I think; the point has
been made).

Best Wishes,

Lee Stanley