FOM: naive or brainwashed?

[Martin Schlottmann]

I would like to thank Martin Davis for his excellent
apologia of the classical foundations of mathematics.

Let me corroborate Davis' conjecture:

> [...] I don't believe the topos-folks believe in, or
> care about, such a unified foundation. It suffices for them that
> various PARTICULAR mathematical subjects can be elegantly treated
> using categorical methods. [...]

by the following citation from a mail to the category
theory mailing list (see http://www.mta.ca/~cat-dist/)
in answer to Vaughan Pratt's crossposting of Harvey
Friedman's famous challenge:

> Date: Fri, 23 Jan 1998 16:32:35 -0600 (CST)
> From: David Yetter <dyetter at math.ksu.edu>
>   To: categories at mta.ca
>
> [...]  I would like to point out, though that Friedman has deliberately chosen
> as a test case real analysis, a subject which exists only to simulate the
> existence of fluxions on the basis of foundations tied to two-valued logic.
> [...]

which I find particularly revealing.


-- 
Martin Schlottmann <martin_schlottmann at math.ualberta.ca>
Sessional Lecturer
Department of Mathematical Sciences, CAB 583
University of Alberta, Edmonton AB T6G 2G1, Canada