Posted: Feb 05, 2011 1:58 am
VazScep wrote:Russell's solution to vicious circularities was a ramified type theory, which has now been accepted as a standard way to handle the vicious circularities that seem to be endemic in higher-order logic. You put the same theory to bear on the statement "Whatever knowledge is attainable, must be attained by scientific methods", and you are forced to conclude that the statement is in a different class to the statements it mentions and so doesn't apply to itself. The point can be further explored via Tarski's Theorem and the idea of "metalevel" statements, as well as other considerations from logic that have been teased out mathematically.
I'm not saying these solutions are perfect or even any good. What I am saying is thatis best explained by jamest's ignorance, rather than by suggesting Russell was an idiot.jamest wrote:Therefore, the guy is talking bollocks. Simple. How do these idiots become so well-known? I don't gettit.
My ignorance of solutions [put forward by a specific individual] that are not necessarily "perfect or even any good", hardly disqualifies me from noting that such solutions must be bollox in themselves. This isn't the history forum. What some 'bigwig' has said is hardly significant just because a small minority of individuals insert a pedestal beneath his feet.