Frege’s Logicism (Elucidations)

| Philosophy | 0 Comments
22 Oct

Patricia Blanchette discusses Logicism and the work of Gottlob Frege. Logicism is a school of thought in the philosophy of mathematics which tries to reduce mathematics to logic. Gottlob Frege was a 18th-19th century German philosopher and mathematician who made important contributions to the fields of logic, philosophy of language, and philosophy of mathematics. This […]

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What Are Numbers? Philosophy of Mathematics

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11 Sep

What is mathematics about and how do we acquire mathematical knowledge? Is mathematics something discovered or invented? Daniel Sutherland discusses such issues in the philosophy of mathematics, explaining some of the basic difficulties involved in trying to say what numbers are and how we come to know them. This is an episode of Elucidations, a […]

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Intro to the Philosophy of Mathematics (Ray Monk)

| Philosophy | 0 Comments
21 Aug

A good introduction to the philosophy of mathematics by Ray Monk. He considers the issue of the nature of mathematical truth, what mathematics is actually about, and discusses the views of Plato, Aristotle, Immanuel Kant, Frege and Bertrand Russell… What are numbers? What is mathematics even about? Is it something discovered or is it something […]

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The Philosophy of Language with John Searle

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05 Mar

John Searle and Bryan Magee discuss the philosophy of language. The philosophy of language is a branch of philosophy which centers on issues involving the nature of meaning, reference, truth, intentionality, and generally how language represents and relates to external objects in the world. Philosophical issues of language are thought by many to be particularly […]

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Frege’s Puzzle (Philosophy of Language)

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16 Mar

An explication of Gottlob Frege’s puzzle for the principle of the transitivity of identity also known as the principle of identity substitution.

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Doubting Math (Russell’s Paradox)

| Betrand Russell, Great Thinkers, Philosophy | 0 Comments
02 Feb

An explanation of why you should be skeptical of math and Russell’s Paradox for Set Theory.

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2 Analyzing Language: Bertrand Russell’s Theory of Descriptions

| Betrand Russell, Great Thinkers, Philosophy | 0 Comments
20 Jun

Stephen Neale discusses Bertrand Russell’s famous theory of descriptions and some of the philosophical issues surrounding it involving the nature of language and thought. The theory was introduced in Russell’s article “On Denoting” and has made significant contributions to the philosophy of language, as well as logic, epistemology, and metaphysics. Among other things, it made […]

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