Hello - here are a few brief remarks on my own specialism:
I want to straighten out a few points relating to philosophy that were raised by several people on the list (Ken Kahn, Andres Valloud, Hans Beck, Justin Walsh, to name some), but my first point relates to e-mail and this list:
(1) I am 51 and hold degrees in philosophy and (mathematical) psychology and have been systematically reading philosophy and logic now for 35 years. I have a large site dedicated to aspects of it, and I am willing to discuss it in e-mail, but I am not going to discuss it extensively or seriously on this list, for this list is concerned with developing Squeak.
Also, one of the inconveniences of e-mail is that anybody of any age and any level of (in)competence and ignorance (or genius) can keep pretending and talking, hiding semi-anonymously behind a bitstream-format, and talking Big Words in bad grammar endlessly.
(2) The point of my earlier mail on Leibniz and Kant was NOT to discuss philosophy on this list, but to give people pointers to really good philosophical books. You don't learn philosophy by e-mail: you learn it by reading a lot of the classics; making excerpts; writing comments; and discussing it with others who have done likewise.
(3) Hans Beck wrote:
Why ? And what means philosophy ?
You'll find some of my own answers on my site, to which there is a link below. Apart from that, the best general and comprehensive answer I know is the Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Ed. Paul Edwards. This may be out of print now, but any decent university has a copy. (It's 4 or 8 volumes, depending on the edition. It is very well done and contains an enormous amount of clearly written information on nearly all aspects of philosophy and related matters.)
(4) Hans Beck also wrote
And Decartes a bad mathematician ?? I'm not sure.
Descartes was a mathematician, indeed. So were Russell and Leibniz. The others book-references I gave in mu earlier mail were also all by mathematical people or physicists. What I said is that MOST philosophers in history were NOT mathematicians, and knew little mathematics. As it happens, I like the mathematical and logical approach, and there have been quite a lot of this in the last 150 years or so. For example, try Peirce, Whitehead, Ramsey, Carnap, Montague, Tarski, Ajdukiewicz, Suppes, Quine, Lewis (C.I. and D.). All of these, I think, had degrees in mathematics or mathematical logic. I could name many more, but the real point is that naming is of little use if you don't read them. The ones I named were at least very clever and wrote tolerably well.
There is a very useful internet encyclopedia of philosophy maintained at Stanford at present. Check out "analytical philosophy" and "philosophy of science" in a good philosophical encyclopedia or on the net.
(5) Ken Kahn wrote
Philosophy intersects programming languages at least in two places:
Well, philosophy intersects with every human cognitive endeavour at many places. It also produced an enormous amount of purple prose, big words, and nonsense, next to some of the finest and best formulated thinking. (As things are in our "human-all-too-human" world, what's good tends to be rare and is always in a minority.)
(6) Justin Walsh wrote ... a lot I can't say anything serious about (as not quite as geriatric a case as he claims to be, but as another quite "mature person"). I'm sorry Justin, I don't know what your academic specialism is, if any, but it doesn't intersect with mine. If you want to make a logical point, please do so in terms of standard set theory, and in private mail, not on this list, and possibly even someone as ignorant as I may be about philosophy and logic can understand it.
(7) Andres Valloud wrote
I was thinking that, eventually, we will get to a point where we will ask the question "what's the intention of an electron?"... or, if gravity is the effect of an intention, what's that intention in the first place? There are certain things we will never know.
True. But if you check out my site, you find a copy of Leibniz's Monadology with my comments and a long excerpt of Leibniz's "Nouveaux Essays" with my comments, and you'll learn that Leibniz held that everything is a monad, and monads are characterized by having intentions. (Others who thought likewise or similar: Aristotle - entelechies; Whitehead - "Process and Reality" and many more. Check out "pan-psychism" in a good philosophical encyclopedia. Also, a search with "propositional attitudes", "intentions", "intensional logic" etc. on the net, and in a university with a good computer-library system will produce a lot that's relevant to what you wrote.)
I hope this response clarifies some to some. Those who want to seriously discuss or ask about philosophy can reach me off-list, and are adviced to check out my site. My e-mail is in the header, my site's address is in my signature.
---
Regards,
Maarten Maartensz. Website in Amsterdam about philosophy, logic, M.E. (Myalgic Encephalomyelitis) and much more:
Maarten
Thanks for the philosphical notes.
But what I'd like to know is whether you've sorted the .cs.gz problem.
Cheers
John
Hi Maarten! Thank you for your expert advice. I will take heed of it. Thanks again for talking straight to me by name. You are obviously quite a modest person in spite of your academic achievements. "God" still prefers to talk past me to the lesser authority. Perhaps that is because you guessed right: I have no academic qualifications just a few skills (including rat, nay, mouse cunning) I have had to learn, to survive. I don't use a spell or grammer checker and often read the German classics in German. Because I'm not a natural at language it confuses me a bit. So you see I am at the right place, this elist, with my kind; plodders, people with skills, people that ole Charlie never bothered to create a category for. So I'll put it in for him. Better late than never: Trivium, Quadrivium, SKILL. I just graffitied the walls of the Holy Roman Empire, yeah! Funny after thought. Kants father was a saddler like mine. Do your think saddlers are "chosen"?
I said before I don't trust philosophy because it is "dialectical" (attempts to discover the 'unity of the manifold' through the conflict of opposites): philosophy is "war" by other means. Being related to and a believer in peacefull Aboriginal culture. I reject european philosophy essentially for that reason and, embrace sound science like that of Kant. If anything he is thorough. You, Maarten may, hopefully, remove the unbearable weight of ignorance from my poor working class shoulders by refuting the words of Kant: ie "We have already entitled dialect in general a logic of illusion. This ..." Page 297 (ref attachment). Until then. I guess I will continue, to do what mere skilled workers have always done, believe in themselves, what they know to be true and hope the "speculative leadership" and their "architects" know where the heck they are taking us. If only I had not been tempted to read, by a well intentioned 'philosopher', like yourself, I may not be like Summerset Maughams "Verger" now. Cheers Justin PS Then again, you could remain and add the touch of "authority and credibility" that I lack.
----- Original Message ----- From: "Maarten Maartensz" maartens@xs4all.nl To: squeak-dev@lists.squeakfoundation.org Sent: Friday, October 12, 2001 10:23 PM Subject: Assorted philosophy points briefly answered
Hello - here are a few brief remarks on my own specialism:
I want to straighten out a few points relating to philosophy that were raised by several people on the list (Ken Kahn, Andres Valloud, Hans Beck, Justin Walsh, to name some), but my first point relates to e-mail and this list:
(1) I am 51 and hold degrees in philosophy and (mathematical) psychology and have been systematically reading philosophy and logic now for 35
years.
I have a large site dedicated to aspects of it, and I am willing to
discuss
it in e-mail, but I am not going to discuss it extensively or seriously on this list, for this list is concerned with developing Squeak.
Also, one of the inconveniences of e-mail is that anybody of any age and any level of (in)competence and ignorance (or genius) can keep pretending and talking, hiding semi-anonymously behind a bitstream-format, and
talking
Big Words in bad grammar endlessly.
(2) The point of my earlier mail on Leibniz and Kant was NOT to discuss philosophy on this list, but to give people pointers to really good philosophical books. You don't learn philosophy by e-mail: you learn it by reading a lot of the classics; making excerpts; writing comments; and discussing it with others who have done likewise.
(3) Hans Beck wrote:
Why ? And what means philosophy ?
You'll find some of my own answers on my site, to which there is a link below. Apart from that, the best general and comprehensive answer I know
is
the Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Ed. Paul Edwards. This may be out of print now, but any decent university has a copy. (It's 4 or 8 volumes, depending on the edition. It is very well done and contains an enormous amount of clearly written information on nearly all aspects of philosophy and
related
matters.)
(4) Hans Beck also wrote
And Decartes a bad mathematician ?? I'm not sure.
Descartes was a mathematician, indeed. So were Russell and Leibniz. The others book-references I gave in mu earlier mail were also all by mathematical people or physicists. What I said is that MOST philosophers
in
history were NOT mathematicians, and knew little mathematics. As it happens, I like the mathematical and logical approach, and there have been quite a lot of this in the last 150 years or so. For example, try Peirce, Whitehead, Ramsey, Carnap, Montague, Tarski, Ajdukiewicz, Suppes, Quine, Lewis (C.I. and D.). All of these, I think, had degrees in mathematics or mathematical logic. I could name many more, but the real point is that naming is of little use if you don't read them. The ones I named were at least very clever and wrote tolerably well.
There is a very useful internet encyclopedia of philosophy maintained at Stanford at present. Check out "analytical philosophy" and "philosophy of science" in a good philosophical encyclopedia or on the net.
(5) Ken Kahn wrote
Philosophy intersects programming languages at least in two places:
Well, philosophy intersects with every human cognitive endeavour at many places. It also produced an enormous amount of purple prose, big words,
and
nonsense, next to some of the finest and best formulated thinking. (As things are in our "human-all-too-human" world, what's good tends to be
rare
and is always in a minority.)
(6) Justin Walsh wrote ... a lot I can't say anything serious about (as
not
quite as geriatric a case as he claims to be, but as another quite "mature person"). I'm sorry Justin, I don't know what your academic specialism is, if any, but it doesn't intersect with mine. If you want to make a logical point, please do so in terms of standard set theory, and in private mail, not on this list, and possibly even someone as ignorant as I may be about philosophy and logic can understand it.
(7) Andres Valloud wrote
I was thinking that, eventually, we will get to a point where we will ask the question "what's the intention of an electron?"... or, if gravity is the effect of an intention, what's that intention in the first place? There are certain things we will never know.
True. But if you check out my site, you find a copy of Leibniz's
Monadology
with my comments and a long excerpt of Leibniz's "Nouveaux Essays" with my comments, and you'll learn that Leibniz held that everything is a monad, and monads are characterized by having intentions. (Others who thought likewise or similar: Aristotle - entelechies; Whitehead - "Process and Reality" and many more. Check out "pan-psychism" in a good philosophical encyclopedia. Also, a search with "propositional attitudes", "intentions", "intensional logic" etc. on the net, and in a university with a good computer-library system will produce a lot that's relevant to what you
wrote.)
I hope this response clarifies some to some. Those who want to seriously discuss or ask about philosophy can reach me off-list, and are adviced to check out my site. My e-mail is in the header, my site's address is in my signature.
Regards,
Maarten Maartensz. Website in Amsterdam about philosophy, logic, M.E. (Myalgic Encephalomyelitis) and much more:
squeak-dev@lists.squeakfoundation.org
-
John Hinsley -
Justin Walsh -
Maarten Maartensz