From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Msuck: nntp://news.gmane.io/gmane.science.mathematics.categories/6629 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: "Fred E.J. Linton" Newsgroups: gmane.science.mathematics.categories Subject: Re: Explanations Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2011 13:22:25 -0400 Message-ID: Reply-To: "Fred E.J. Linton" NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1303391362 13806 80.91.229.12 (21 Apr 2011 13:09:22 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2011 13:09:22 +0000 (UTC) Cc: categories To: Jean-Pierre Marquis Original-X-From: majordomo@mlist.mta.ca Thu Apr 21 15:09:18 2011 Return-path: Envelope-to: gsmc-categories@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from smtpx.mta.ca ([138.73.1.4]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1QCtdG-0004M2-0y for gsmc-categories@m.gmane.org; Thu, 21 Apr 2011 15:09:18 +0200 Original-Received: from mlist.mta.ca ([138.73.1.63]:60244) by smtpx.mta.ca with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1QCtct-00055j-CL; Thu, 21 Apr 2011 10:08:55 -0300 Original-Received: from majordomo by mlist.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1QCtcp-0005GX-7K for categories-list@mlist.mta.ca; Thu, 21 Apr 2011 10:08:51 -0300 Precedence: bulk Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.science.mathematics.categories:6629 Archived-At: On Wed, 20 Apr 2011 08:04:09 AM EDT, Jean-Pierre Marquis asked: > ... some people claim that there are mathematical proofs that are = > explanatory, that is, not only do they establish the claim they prove, > but they also show why the given result holds. > = > ... is there any proof, involving categories or not (but preferably so)= , > that you would consider as being explanatory in this sense? ... My goodness! I'd turn that question around: is there any proof (apart = from an "indirect" proof, or "proof by contradiction") that one would = *not* "consider as being explanatory in this sense?" Cheers, -- Fred [For admin and other information see: http://www.mta.ca/~cat-dist/ ]