sábado, março 27, 2010

Russell vs. cético sobre as condições da implicação


Bertrand Russell was discussing conditional statements of the above type and maintaining that a false statement implies anything and everything. A skeptical philosopher questioned him, “You mean that if 2 + 2 = 5, then you are the Pope?” Russell answered affirmatively and supplied the
following amusing “proof”:
“If we’re assuming 2 + 2 = 5, then certainly you’ll agree that subtracting 2 from each side of the equation gives us 2 = 3. Transposing, we have 3 = 2, and subtracting 1 from each side of the equation gives us 2 = 1. Thus since the Pope and I are two people and 2 = 1, then the Pope and I are one. Hence I’m the Pope.” (pp. 17-18)


Um comentário:

Renan disse...

Very cool! I liked it.