FOM: Forwarded mail....

[Solomon Feferman]

Pratt mistakenly mentions Kreisel in this connection.  The quote produced
by Torkel Franzen in response to McLarty's question is from "Proof theory:
a personal report", an Appendix I wrote for the 2nd edition of Takeuti's
_Proof Theory_, from pp.479-480.  Yesterday, I had responded separately
and in the same vein to McClarty's question by reference to my article
"Categorical foundations and foundations of category theory".

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 18 Nov 1997 13:54:55 +0100
From: Harvey Friedman <friedman at math.ohio-state.edu>
To: sf at Csli.Stanford.EDU

Sol - I'm confused. Who is this quote from and where? Pratt mentions
Kreisel in his recent posting.

	For example, some mathematicians espouse category theory
        as a new, purely mathematical foundational scheme. But what
        has been done is to take relatively sophisticated
        structural notions (category, functor) defined (informally)
        in terms of ordinary unstructured mathematical notions
        (class, function) and attempt to kick away the traces -
        'explaining' the latter in terms of the former. Whatever
        the organizational power of category theory in different
        parts of mathematics, this attempt at foundations is an
        exercise in self-deception.