maybe he is really a philosopher, rather than either a logician or a mathematician?Īt least i never did understand philosophy, in the sense of how many angels can dance on a pinhead, etc.Īt a certain point i even read some parts of PM, just to verfiy for myself that it really took over 100 pages to prove that 1+1 = 2, and found that it did, and that it did not make even that very enlightening to me personally. so russell was kind of an exception for me, i.e. however i did always enjoy greatly the writings of many logicians, and even studied under Willard Van Orman Quine, read Carnap, and many others. Perhaps there is a dichotomy between math types and logic types, and i belong to one and russell to the other. I realized immediately that i was probably not the only person who found russell uninspiring, and never cared about it again. eventually i ran across a book by hausdorff, where he dismissed attempts to "define" numbers by saying he was more interested in how they behaved, and then he began doing fascinating mathematics. i guess i thought something must be wrong with me, since if he is so great shouldn't i get something out of them? or else probably i am kind of stupid. so i read some of his works but never got into any of them. Nothing more.ġ) account of, reason for, a negative impression (mine):Īs a young person i liked logic and math and was always under the impression russell was a great exemplar of both. Anyway, just to clear something once again: I have not any problems with you mathwonk and I just asked about your dislike of Russel. Of course I can check it myself, and I will, but if for example you mentioned that even teachers of mathematics have problems understanding it, then I would probably not bother to look at it at the current time.(there's also a practical problem about getting it-money if you want to buy it, and that it's not easily found in libraries in my country). But I specifically asked about PM because I would like to get some information about what is and what knowledge is required in order to understand it. And I am, too, of the opinion that someone has to make his own decisions without listening to what others say. I don't have any problem about your advice. If you don't like my advice feel free to reject it, but why does it bother you that i offer it? too hard to make up your mind if you get conflicting advice? As to Principia, think i stated my views rather clearly and succintly in post 3 above.
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