[Xmca-l] Re: Objectivity of mathematics

[Martin John Packer]

I want to focus on the relationship. We humans live in the world. A distinction between subjective and objective, between subject and object, arises only when we sit down and reflect. That's fine, but we make the mistake of taking that distinction to be primary when it is derivative, as fundamental when it is founded, as universal when it is historical. It is a waste of time to ask, "Does this belong to the subject or to the object?" "Is this objective, or is it subjective?" "Is this mental, or is it material?" "Is this a convention, or is this natural?" 

Did you find where I said there is nothing outside the text?

Martin

On Nov 9, 2014, at 9:46 AM, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net> wrote:

> Never mind dichotomies, Martin; they are your speciality alone. Are you willing to do away with the distinction between subjective and objective, do away with the subject-object relation?
> 
> Andy
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *Andy Blunden*
> http://home.pacific.net.au/~andy/
> 
> 
> Martin John Packer wrote:
>> Agreed, Anna. Andy, I think, defines objective as what cannot be changed. I follow Julian in finding that confusing. Andy gave the example that human activity cannot change the fact that the world is round. Yet with enough atomic bombs humans could certainly change that fact! Less depressingly, human activity changes our material circumstances all the time, and we often employ mathematics in order to do this.
>> 
>> At the risk of repeating myself, I think we need to work hard to escape from false dichotomies such as objective/subjective, social/real, conventional/natural...
>> 
>> Brian Rotman has suggested that we need “to demolish the widely held metaphysical belief that mathematical signs point to, refer to, or invoke some world, some supposedly objective eternal domain, other than that of their own human, that is time bound, changeable, subjective and finite, making” (1987, p. 107).
>> 
>> Martin
>> 
>> 
>