From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Msuck: nntp://news.gmane.io/gmane.science.mathematics.categories/3191 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: "Marta Bunge" Newsgroups: gmane.science.mathematics.categories Subject: RE: WHY ARE WE CONCERNED? I Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2006 14:28:54 -0500 Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: main.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1241019146 7642 80.91.229.2 (29 Apr 2009 15:32:26 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2009 15:32:26 +0000 (UTC) To: categories@mta.ca Original-X-From: rrosebru@mta.ca Thu Mar 30 19:00:39 2006 -0400 Return-path: Envelope-to: categories-list@mta.ca Delivery-date: Thu, 30 Mar 2006 19:00:39 -0400 Original-Received: from Majordom by mailserv.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.52) id 1FP675-0007Bq-JN for categories-list@mta.ca; Thu, 30 Mar 2006 18:59:35 -0400 Original-Sender: cat-dist@mta.ca Precedence: bulk X-Keywords: X-UID: 137 Original-Lines: 55 Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.science.mathematics.categories:3191 Archived-At: Dear Bill, Congratulations on your posting, particularly in what refers to Mac Lane, which is very revealing. > When Saunders Mac Lane penned his hard-hitting 1997 Synthese >article, he was defending mathematics from an attack many of us hoped >would just go away. But Saunders was aware of the seriousness of the >threat, which indeed is still here with greater determination. >Although the title of that article was "Despite physicists, proof is >essential in mathematics", he was not opposing physics, nor even that >immediate handful who, assuming the mantle of "mathematical physicists", >gave themselves license to insult generations of scrupulously serious >physicists and to demand that mathematics adopt a culture that considers >conjecture as nearly-established truth. In essence it was an attack on >science itself, as the highest form of knowing, that Saunders was >opposing. In case there may be somebody not acquainted with MacLane's excellent article, here is a link to it: http://www.math.nsc.ru/LBRT/g2/english/ssk/proof_is_necessary.pdf > The contempt for Mac Lane's fight, recently expressed in articles >supposedly memorializing him, takes the form of the claim that category >theory itself is a "cool" instrument for deepening obscurantism. Not only >Harvard's "When is one thing equal to another thing?" and the Cambridge >"morality" muddle, but also a 2003 article aimed at teachers of >undergraduates, quite explicitly support that claim. I suppose that you cannot (or do not want to) be more explicit. I do not know (for the most part) which articles you are referring to. Best wishes, Marta ************************************************ Marta Bunge Professor Emerita Dept of Mathematics and Statistics McGill University 805 Sherbrooke St. West Montreal, QC, Canada H3A 2K6 Office: (514) 398-3810 Home: (514) 935-3618 marta.bunge@mcgill.ca http://www.math.mcgill.ca/bunge/ ************************************************