FOM: polylogic, answer to Kanovei 4/3/99

[Prof. Antonino Drago]

In answer to Kanovei's consideration about Marx and logic, denying a =
Marx' alternative program in natural sciences, I recall that the =
adhesion to offical natural science was Engel's one and Second =
International's one. Instead, Marx spent most time of last years of his =
life to study an alternative foundation of calculus. His manuscripts =
have been published almost a century after, in 19689 in Moscow and then =
traslated in several languages (I seem in English also, surely one half =
of them in Italian and a little part in French). I think that is a =
relavnt fact for fom members; not so much for his results - in fact, he =
was wrong, some mathematicians of his time, although sympathetic to =
socialism, gave negative appraisals on his elaborations - but for both =
his program - to find an alternative technique (through the ideas =
suggested by the aristocrat Lagrange!) of constructive kind, in =
anticipation of later constructivist mathematicians - and for his =
historical evaluations - it is enlighting his parallelism between =
history of calculus (Newton, D'Alembert and Lagrange) with history of =
philosophy (Kant, Fichte, Hegel).
Antonino Drago
Dept. Physical Sciences
Univ. Naples
adrago at na.infn.it