FOM: Relevance

[Torkel Franzen]

  Neil Tennant says:

  >I would like to raise what might be a new topic for discussion on the
  >list: the importance of 'relevant' logical reasoning for actual
  >mathematics.

  It's not clear to me where you suggest that this importance lies.
>From a mathematical point of view, the intuitionistic restriction
on logic makes sense as an element in preserving a global property
of proofs, that of being "constructive". Is there any corresponding
global property of proofs (meaningful from a mathematical point of
view) that the restrictions you propose help preserve?

  You remark:

  >If so, then the relevantist of type (2) could claim to have a workable
  >explication of mathematicians' intuitions of relevance in their
  >reasoning.

  Here I wonder which intuitions of relevance you have in mind. One
interpretation would be the ideas mathematicians have about what is
used in some essential way in a particular proof and what could be
eliminated without any great amount of work, but it doesn't appear
that this is what you have in mind.