Abstract
AbstractThis paper studies Paul Cohen’s philosophy of mathematics and mathematical practice as expressed in his writing on set-theoretic consistency proofs using his method of forcing. Since Cohen did not consider himself a philosopher and was somewhat reluctant about philosophy, the analysis uses semiotic and literary textual methodologies rather than mainstream philosophical ones. Specifically, I follow some ideas of Lévi-Strauss’s structural semiotics and some literary narratological methodologies. I show how Cohen’s reflections and rhetoric attempt to bridge what he experiences as an uncomfortable tension between reality and the formal by means of his notion of intuition.
Funder
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Subject
General Social Sciences,Philosophy
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