[FOM] Quotation from Frege
Sara L. Uckelman
suckelma at illc.uva.nl
Sun Nov 27 12:57:56 EST 2005
Dean Buckner wrote:
> I have searched in all the obvious places but cannot find it. It is
> something like "it is odd that the most exact of sciences [i.e.
> mathematics] should seek support from psychology, a science that is
> feeling its way none too surely .." .
>
> Grateful to anyone who can locate the source of this. I had thought the
> Grundgesetze, but it seems to have disappeared from my copy.
It's in the _Foundations_. Austin's translation (second revised
edition) p. 38 says:
"Weird and wonderful, as we see, are the results of taking seriously the
suggestion that number is an idea. And we are driven to the conclusion
that number is neither spatial nor physical, like Mill's piles of
pebbles and gingersnaps, nor yet subjective like ideas, but non-sensible
and objective. Now objectivity cannot, of course, be based on any
sense-impression, which as an affection of our mind is entirely
subjective, but only, so far as I can see, on the reason.
"It would be strange if the most exact of all the sciences had to seek
support from psychology, which is still feeling its way none too surely."
-Sara Uckelman
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|Institute for Logic, Language, and Computation|
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