FOM: 'Logical parsimony' of intuitionistic mathematics

Torkel Franzen torkel at sm.luth.se
Tue Feb 10 03:11:03 EST 1998


  Neil Tennant says:

  >The assumption is that, when judging of the adequacy of a particular kind
  >of `logically parsimonious' mathematics (say, intuitionism), we should be
  >insisting that it should provide the *theorems* supposedly needed for 
  >application within our physical theorizing.

  Another dubious assumption is that intuitionism is "logically
parsimonius".  After all, intuitionistic predicate logic contains any
number of logical distinctions that correspond to nothing in
mathematical knowledge or reasoning. This is rather an embarrassment
of (logical) riches than any kind of parsimony.

---
Torkel Franzen




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