Contradictions and falling bridges: what was Wittgenstein's reply to Turing?

被引:3
作者
Matthiasson, Asgeir Berg [1 ]
机构
[1] Univ St Andrews, Dept Philosophy, St Andrews KY16 9AL, Fife, Scotland
基金
欧盟地平线“2020”;
关键词
Paradoxes; Ludwig Wittgenstein; Alan Turing; lectures on the foundations of mathematics; inconsistency; INCONSISTENT MODELS;
D O I
10.1080/09608788.2020.1815646
中图分类号
B [哲学、宗教];
学科分类号
01 ; 0101 ;
摘要
In this paper, I offer a close reading of Wittgenstein's remarks on inconsistency, mostly as they appear in theLectures on the Foundations of Mathematics. I focus especially on an objection to Wittgenstein's view given by Alan Turing, who attended the lectures, the so called 'falling bridges'-objection. Wittgenstein's position is that if contradictions arise in some practice of language, they are not necessarily fatal to that practice nor necessitate a revision of that practice. If we then assume that we have adopted a paraconsistent logic, Wittgenstein's answer to Turing is that if we run into trouble building our bridge, it is either because we have made a calculation mistake or our calculus does not actually describe the phenomenon it is intended to model. The possibility of either kind of error is not particular to contradictions nor to inconsistency, and thus contradictions do not have any special status as a thing to be avoided.
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页码:537 / 559
页数:23
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