Anyone with a Analytical Philosophy course completed, upon being asked "who shaves Russell's Barber" out of context, will simply look the interlocutor with amused pity. — Akanthinos
I can't find anything in your post I'd agree with. Certainly not the "amused pity" or the treatment of Russell's argument as an artifact. — Srap Tasmaner
Its fine to be unproductive and timewasting, — Akanthinos
The Russell set is manifestly pathological. That it is, I could know even without knowing its role in the history of philosophy, — Srap Tasmaner
As things stand, we have a predicate composed of simple, well-behaved elements to all appearances assembled in an acceptable way — Srap Tasmaner
Your entire argument boils down to a child throwing a fit because the neighbor kid is playing with his/her toys. — Jeremiah
As things stand, we have a predicate composed of simple, well-behaved elements to all appearances assembled in an acceptable way, and yet this predicate cannot possibly be predicated of anything. If we could say why this abomination is no predicate at all, we could regain the Paradise in which predicates always pick out classes. — Srap Tasmaner
The Russell predicate most definitely picks out a class: the class of all things that are not members of themselves. This class just doesn't happen to be a set. It simply turns out to be the case that some collections defined by predicates are sets; and others are not. — fishfry
there is no class (as a totality) of those classes which, each taken as a totality, do not belong to themselves. From this I conclude that under certain circumstances a definable collection [Menge] does not form a totality
Let w be the predicate: to be a predicate that cannot be predicated of itself. Can w be predicated of itself? From each answer its opposite follows. Therefore we must conclude that w is not a predicate.
that is basically what you are doing, being a child pretending at having authority. — Akanthinos
What we have is something that clearly works, but we haven't got the vocabulary to express it mathematically. That's a mental state familiar to everyone who's ever had to construct a proof. We get to the point where we can SEE what's going on, but we can't mathematically SAY what's going on. That's where Newton and the mathematicians of the 18th and 19th century got stuck till they finally worked out a proper formalization. — fishfry
Get involved in philosophical discussions about knowledge, truth, language, consciousness, science, politics, religion, logic and mathematics, art, history, and lots more. No ads, no clutter, and very little agreement — just fascinating conversations.