Pynchon & Math (Aristotle vs. Plato)

[Bled Welder]

She's reasonably *gorgerous*, yes, don't stop me here..

But I don't need to "stop on Maths",gorgeous.

Do you really want to fight about it out Plato and math?   You don't even
know the way into 1.0136, do you?  You ignorant fuck?


On Thu, Jan 24, 2013 at 5:57 AM, alice wellintown <alicewellintown at gmail.com
> wrote:

> Several critical studies examine Pynchon and the American Pragmatists.
>
> I think a good place to turn is to Aristotle. Here in an Introduction
> we see a basic difference in Aristotle from Plato and Socrates, and
> specifically, on Ethics. The wisdom of Aristotle is that he accepts
> the idea that it is wise to examine or explore a topic only so far as
> the topic permits, that there is an exhaustion point, and that in
> Ethics, and in Politics, the topic does not allow for examination as
> it does in other sciences.
>
> Is the application of math to Ethics and Politics Fascist? Maybe.
> Maybe something in that GR....
>
> Is Plato a Fascist?
>
> No, but the math....
>
> The main difference between Plato and Aristotle is this: Plato thought
> ethics was an exact (theoretical) science; Aristotle thought precision
> was extremely difficult in a science such as ethics. Please note that
> "science" is being used in its ancient sense of knowledge in general.
>
> THE PROPER METHOD FOR ETHICS (Bk. I, Sec. 3)
>
> From ethics one can expect only as much precision as the subject
> matter allows. This is opposite to Plato's belief, because it does not
> allow for any mathematical exactness. Does this mean, then, that moral
> rules are "conventions," made up or created by humans? No, they are
> natural, but they are not like Plato's immutable forms. Aristotle
> avoids ethical relativism because of his confidence in human reason
> and experience to decide on general courses of action.
>
> Plato approached ethical questions with a formal, abstract approach,
> analyzing each just as he would analyze a math problem. Aristotle,
> though, believed that because of all the human variables found in
> ethics (but not found in the formal sciences), mathematical precision
> was impossible.
>
> http://www.class.uidaho.edu/ngier/103/aristotle.htm
>
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