This Article Full Text (PDF) All Versions of this Article: 0048393109334584v1 39/3/507    most recent References Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by Agassi, J. Social Bookmarking                         What's this?

The Advantage of Theft over Honest Toil

Tel-Aviv University and York University, Toronto

Gregory Landini offers a new and an illuminating reading of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s idea about his own innovation: it is the invention of a notation that removes the mystery from all theorems of logic and of mathematics as it renders their proofs part of their wordings. This makes all theorems in principle as boring as "all four-legged animals are animals." This idea is Wittgenstein’s doctrine of showing. It is worthless; yet, as Landini shows, every time Wittgenstein offered an elaboration on it, Russell checked it carefully and found it of no value. This, let me add, shows that Russell was in error in suggesting that intellectually there is no "advantage of theft over honest toil": at times one may pay back and with high interest. Other cases may be due to misjudgment rather than to sloth.

Key Words: history of logic • logical positivism • Russell • Wittgenstein

This version was published on September 1, 2009

Philosophy of the Social Sciences, Vol. 39, No. 3, 507-526 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/0048393109334584


CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter    What's this?