Pynchon & Math (Aristotle vs. Plato)

[Monte Davis]

I think there may be a conflation of "reality" with "exactness" and
"precision" lurking here. First, a silly and wise old science/math joke: A
wealthy horse fancier decides to bring science to bear on his passion, and
hires three professors to learn what makes the fastest horse. A year later,
the biologist tells him: "There appears to be an association with descent
from the Darley Arabian, and with high levels of creatine phosphatase." The
engineer tells him: "The optimal ratio of third metacarpal length to
proximal phalanx length is between 2.15 and 2.35." And the physicist tells
him: "I'm making real progress on the frictionless spherical homogeneous
horse."

 

Pedestrian (bipedal) unfolding: in the spectrum sketched here, the
mathematical-physics end promises rigor and precision - and maybe, down the
line, predictive power -- because of its abstraction. The initial model is
chosen to be mathematically tractable, and to have no relevant attributes
that are not explicit in the model. At the other end, the biologist is much
less certain: so many other developmental and environmental factors are at
work that these two are bare starting points. And the engineer, somewhere in
between, settles for a working rule of, uhh, thumb that could actually be
applied (and evaluated, and incrementally refined) in the stable rather than
the lab.

 

Bertrand Russell's alternate, gnomic version: "Mathematics is the subject in
which we know neither what we are talking about nor whether what we say is
true." Again, the certainty gained by abstraction - whether 2+2=4 or
Cantor's hierarchy of infinities - may or may not carry over to any
particular entities "out there" which we talk about, or to predictions about
them.

 

Consider the exemplars in AtD, from Yashmeen's airy math and relativity to
the purposeful metal of ocean liner/warships and submarines and dive
bombers. Consider the seriously punning juxtapositions, such as "wormholes"
blasted and drilled by sweating miners, or a magic mirror smack dab in the
reflective center of the text. Pynchon has an extraordinary awareness of
both the spectrum (pure math -> mathematical science ->
technology/engineering) and the strange colors you can get by mixing.

 

FWIW, I'm 90% Aristotelian: I do feel the Platonic and gnostic appeal of
abstraction/certainty, but I think it's the shadow rather than the
substance, not the other way around.  

 

 

From: owner-pynchon-l at waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l at waste.org] On Behalf
Of Paul Mackin
Sent: Friday, January 25, 2013 4:07 PM
To: pynchon-l at waste.org
Subject: Re: Pynchon & Math (Aristotle vs. Plato)

 

On 1/25/2013 2:07 AM, Prashant Kumar wrote:

The interesting thing about this dichotomy (in the proper approach to
Ethics) you mention is that it presupposes a  Platonic conception of
mathematics; mathematics as a menagerie of axiomatically true pieces of
abstraction. 

 

A fallibilistic conception of mathematics (the mathematical empiricism of
Quine and Putnam), itself descended from the american pragmatists, which
conceives of mathematical theorems as contingent truths, will result in a
more nebulous notion of precision.

 

I would argue this sort of naturalism, nature as a series of convenient but
contingent truths, is a staple of american fiction more generally. For
example, look at how Pynchon handles the feud between the Quaternionists and
the Vectorists in AtD.



"Mathematics once seemed the way--the internal life of numbers came as a
revelation to me, perhaps as it might have to a Pythagorean apprentice long
ago in Crotona--a reflection of some less accessible reality, through close
study of which one might learn to pass on beyond the difficult given world."

AtD. p. 749.

P





 

P.

On 24 January 2013 22:57, 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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