[FOM] profound flexibility

[Hartley Slater]

Harvey puzzles me with his tenses (FOM Digest Vol 10 Issue 21):

>we will be able to prove in such formalizations that, e.g., no naÔve
>natural number is a von Neumann natural number, etcetera.
>
>So we have "big tent" f.o.m. to borrow a phrase from USA politics.
>
>All of this has been known for a very long time. See just what good hands
>f.o.m. has been in (long before I entered the picture)?
>
>Since all of this is so well known, the serious issues in comtemporary
>f.o.m. lie elsewhere.

Yes, we will be able to prove what he says, but has it been known for 
a very long time?  If it was well known, I grant, the serious issues 
would lie elsewhere.  But Harvey needs to document his assertion that 
good hands have known for a very long time what 'we will be able to 
prove'.  Recent discussions on FOM do not support his confidence.
-- 
Barry Hartley Slater
Honorary Senior Research Fellow
Philosophy, M207 School of Humanities
University of Western Australia
35 Stirling Highway
Crawley WA 6009, Australia
Ph: (08) 9380 1246 (W), 9386 4812 (H)
Fax: (08) 9380 1057
Url: http://www.arts.uwa.edu.au/PhilosWWW/Staff/slater.html