[Revised entry by Panu Raatikainen on April 2, 2020. Changes to: Bibliography] Godel's two incompleteness theorems are among the most important results in modern logic, and have deep implications for various issues. They concern the limits of provability in formal axiomatic theories. The first incompleteness theorem states that in any consistent formal system F within which a certain amount of arithmetic can be carried out, there are statements of the language of F which can neither be proved […]

Read another response about Mathematics Mathematics Share Fred is 14. Would you agree that Fred isn't in the set of people aged less than 15 because he's 14, he's in the set of people aged less than 15 because he's less than 15? (It doesn't matter what his age is, as long as he's less than 15.) Continue reading . . . News source: AskPhilosophers Questions Click the title to visit philosophynews.com for more

Sometime in the 1940s in the sleepy colonial city of Oran, in French occupied Algeria, there was an outbreak of plague. First rats died, then people. Within days, the entire city was quarantined: it was impossible to get out, and no one could get in. This is the fictional setting for Albert Camus’s second most famous novel, The Plague (1947). And yes, there are some similarities to our current […]

Political commentators and satirists love to mock Donald Trump’s verbal gaffs, his simplified vocabulary and vague, boastful speech. But if you judge his oratory by its effect on the audience, Donald Trump’s rhetoric, particularly with large crowds of enthusiastic supporters, is undeniably effective. People have studied the art of rhetoric for millennia – so how does a style that runs counter to all established advice work so well? His use of simple vocabulary and repetition […]

Some quite beautiful spring weather in recent days, and it’s rather frustrating to be confined to home. But while our whatever-it-has-been bug still hangs around, we should do what we can not to spread it. At least we are no longer feeling dog-tired much of the day, and want to get out. Tomorrow maybe. If we survive the excitement of a Waitrose delivery later. Decorating plans are on hold. Guess who left it too late to order a delivery of what we needed. Which is a very small example […]