Recently Tibor O'dor wrote:
>For me, who is a mathematician, Heidegger is the only known philosopher
>except Plato, whose work, at least Beeing and Time,
>expresses beauty, which seems to be very similar to mathematical beauty. I
>strongly feel, that some of Heidegger's ideas are formalizable. Maybe,
>more precise formulation some of his thoughts can help in his understanding.
Recently M Pennamacoor wrote (earlier to the Derrida list):
>Back to the tao
>
>Fear of Numbers: have we become so ac-custom-ed to addition and
>subtraction that we can not count?
>
>Numbness of Fear: if we do not count are we ready to be counted?
>
>What is Number Won?
>
>beep (beep)
>
>MP (MP)
This was in answer to something that appeared to be a play on words to do
with the notion of number one. I agree with the idea that Heidegger's
writings can be exquisitely beautiful, as beautiful as a long proof in pure
mathematics but also as a piece of fine music or... What I would question
is the fruitfulness of pursuing a path that would render Heidegger's
thought in mathematico-logico terms. That he understood the mathematical is
indisputable, but his thought concerning the mathematical or mathesis is
not it self mathematical and thus only available for mathematical
appropriation with excessive violence. Heidegger (in an analysis of Kant)
in his seminal work 'What is a thing?' dicusses the mathematical as that
sort of knowledge we have of things that we are already underway with and
ultimately he poses this sort of thinking against that of re-collective
thinking that thinks back to the arche to the beginning whereby things are
no longer familiar. In Blum, a strange brew of Heidegger and Plato and
Sociology, mathematical speech is seen as the necessary forgetfulness of
'dialectical speech' that embraces the mathematical as a stuck position
within the whole dialectical movement (the conversation in the soul) that
is authentic thinking (no matter what the subject matter): see Alan Blum
'Theorising'. In this sense, mathematical thinking is a necessary although
incomplete accompaniment to philosophical thinking. Thus mathematics (an
outgrowth of the mathematical) is a kind of imprisoned philosophy. I am
taking the main paradigms of the physical sciences as examples of the
mathematical within science - all science as a follow-up to Aristotle's
notion of science's behaviour as a marking off a part of whatness and
speaking of that part without regard to the whole of whatness (Being). By
this action of cutting off and marking out without regard (care) for the
whole from which it is parted and seen as a part, science and thus
mathematics begins with a stultifying limitation (whilst it talks of the
in-finite but only in ways that rely upon the finite - the whole of the
infinitesimal calculus is reliant upon an unacknowledged blind jump over
the abyss that separates the rational numbers from the real numbers).
Mathematical proofs move from the A1 A2 A3 ... An premises to their
conclusion(s) in ways that totally depend upon the A! A2 etc. We move from
the known to the knowable-derived-from-the-known. We multiply our resources
- not any kind of becoming but a becoming that was always coming.
I'm sorry but I think we can talk about mathematics as (Heideggerian)
philosophers but that we should not speak mathematically about
(philosophical) thought. This is not a value judgement but only a statement
as to the 'position' of mathematics and mathematical thinking (not thinking
about mathematics) in the space of wisdom. Mathematics can move but only
without looking back, without the re-trace of stepping over the abyss. Even
in Gödel we do not truly see a (re-collective) thinking mathematics however
ingenious. Mathematical thinking is a thinking that forgets as it moves on,
oblivious to its origins and environment, over the moon that it projects,
its conditions of existence neatly swept under the carpet of irrelevancy.
It is addictive, fetishistic, full of marvels. But it is not wise enough to
think Heidegger.
Please read Heidegger's 'What Is A Thing?', 'What Is Called Thinking' and
'The Question Concerning Technology' for more concerning the mathematical
in Heidegger.
Best Wishes
MP
--- from list heidegger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---
>For me, who is a mathematician, Heidegger is the only known philosopher
>except Plato, whose work, at least Beeing and Time,
>expresses beauty, which seems to be very similar to mathematical beauty. I
>strongly feel, that some of Heidegger's ideas are formalizable. Maybe,
>more precise formulation some of his thoughts can help in his understanding.
Recently M Pennamacoor wrote (earlier to the Derrida list):
>Back to the tao
>
>Fear of Numbers: have we become so ac-custom-ed to addition and
>subtraction that we can not count?
>
>Numbness of Fear: if we do not count are we ready to be counted?
>
>What is Number Won?
>
>beep (beep)
>
>MP (MP)
This was in answer to something that appeared to be a play on words to do
with the notion of number one. I agree with the idea that Heidegger's
writings can be exquisitely beautiful, as beautiful as a long proof in pure
mathematics but also as a piece of fine music or... What I would question
is the fruitfulness of pursuing a path that would render Heidegger's
thought in mathematico-logico terms. That he understood the mathematical is
indisputable, but his thought concerning the mathematical or mathesis is
not it self mathematical and thus only available for mathematical
appropriation with excessive violence. Heidegger (in an analysis of Kant)
in his seminal work 'What is a thing?' dicusses the mathematical as that
sort of knowledge we have of things that we are already underway with and
ultimately he poses this sort of thinking against that of re-collective
thinking that thinks back to the arche to the beginning whereby things are
no longer familiar. In Blum, a strange brew of Heidegger and Plato and
Sociology, mathematical speech is seen as the necessary forgetfulness of
'dialectical speech' that embraces the mathematical as a stuck position
within the whole dialectical movement (the conversation in the soul) that
is authentic thinking (no matter what the subject matter): see Alan Blum
'Theorising'. In this sense, mathematical thinking is a necessary although
incomplete accompaniment to philosophical thinking. Thus mathematics (an
outgrowth of the mathematical) is a kind of imprisoned philosophy. I am
taking the main paradigms of the physical sciences as examples of the
mathematical within science - all science as a follow-up to Aristotle's
notion of science's behaviour as a marking off a part of whatness and
speaking of that part without regard to the whole of whatness (Being). By
this action of cutting off and marking out without regard (care) for the
whole from which it is parted and seen as a part, science and thus
mathematics begins with a stultifying limitation (whilst it talks of the
in-finite but only in ways that rely upon the finite - the whole of the
infinitesimal calculus is reliant upon an unacknowledged blind jump over
the abyss that separates the rational numbers from the real numbers).
Mathematical proofs move from the A1 A2 A3 ... An premises to their
conclusion(s) in ways that totally depend upon the A! A2 etc. We move from
the known to the knowable-derived-from-the-known. We multiply our resources
- not any kind of becoming but a becoming that was always coming.
I'm sorry but I think we can talk about mathematics as (Heideggerian)
philosophers but that we should not speak mathematically about
(philosophical) thought. This is not a value judgement but only a statement
as to the 'position' of mathematics and mathematical thinking (not thinking
about mathematics) in the space of wisdom. Mathematics can move but only
without looking back, without the re-trace of stepping over the abyss. Even
in Gödel we do not truly see a (re-collective) thinking mathematics however
ingenious. Mathematical thinking is a thinking that forgets as it moves on,
oblivious to its origins and environment, over the moon that it projects,
its conditions of existence neatly swept under the carpet of irrelevancy.
It is addictive, fetishistic, full of marvels. But it is not wise enough to
think Heidegger.
Please read Heidegger's 'What Is A Thing?', 'What Is Called Thinking' and
'The Question Concerning Technology' for more concerning the mathematical
in Heidegger.
Best Wishes
MP
--- from list heidegger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---