394 definitions
The book's index
Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics
175 concepts · 394 definitions
- abnormality1
- act of god1
- addition1
- agreement5
- alchemy1
- applied mathematics1
- arithmetic7
- Assertion2
- axiom3
- axiomatic method1
- Being1
- belief2
- calculating1
- calculation19
- calculus1
- certainty4
- chief1
- command1
- commandment1
- commerce1
- communication1
- compulsion1
- concept formation1
- conclusion1
- consistency proof2
- contradiction14
- convention1
- conviction3
- counting5
- decimal system1
- definition2
- demonstration1
- depth1
- description1
- diagonal argument1
- discovery1
- dishonesty1
- double negation1
- education1
- empiricism1
- equation1
- error1
- essence1
- essential1
- eternity1
- evil demon1
- expectation1
- experiment5
- explanation1
- fable1
- finitism1
- form1
- form of expression1
- form of life1
- formalism2
- formula1
- fortune teller1
- foundations of mathematics1
- function1
A Proof (n.) can be known thoroughly, step by step, without understanding what was proved.
A Proof (n.) is like a stage play that helps me predict how things will go — not an experiment, only midwife to the prediction.
A Proof (n.) is not foundations plus rules of inference but a new building, though in a recognisable style — a new paradigm.
A Proof (n.) is most likely, in its verbal result, to delude us with a myth.
Mathematics (n.) reduced to logic is like tables, chairs and cupboards wrapped in enough paper to look spherical in the end.
Mathematics (n.) forms a network of norms.
Mathematics (n.) cannot simply be a game, or dancing would be mathematics too.
Mathematics (n.) needs its signs to be used in mufti, outside mathematics; that outside use is what makes the sign-game mathematics.
A Calculation (n.) throws brilliant light on its verbal summary, while words cast only a dim glow over the calculation — mistrust the words.
Calculation (n.) that looks like a machine at work makes the calculating human being the machine.
Calculation (n.) cannot be explained by agreement, because we judge identity and agreement by the results of our calculating.
Calculation (n.) rests on the agreement of ratifications — the precondition of our language-game, not something it affirms.
A Rule (n.) that does not compel you is not one you are following.
A Rule (n.) has a hardness easily confused with the hardness of a material.
A Rule (n.) stands detached, alone in its glory, though daily experience gives it its importance — like a king whose dignity must not be explained by his usefulness.
A Rule (n.) conducts you like a gangway with rigid walls — and works on you like an order.
Contradiction (n.) inspires in mathematicians a superstitious dread and veneration.
A Contradiction (n.) is the local symptom of a sickness of the whole calculus — and the body is sick only if we do not know our way about.
A Contradiction (n.) might be taken as the gods hinting that I should act rather than consider.
Contradiction (n.) might be a regular instrument of language: a moving object exists and does not exist in this place, change expressed by contradiction.
A Mathematical proposition (n.) is no more anthropology than a statute book is a report on how a nation treats its thieves; the judge does not use it that way.
A Mathematical proposition (n.) seems to point at a reality outside itself, but only expresses the adoption of a new measure of reality.
A Mathematical proposition (n.) that is never applied is an architrave hanging in the air, supported by nothing and supporting nothing.
A Mathematical proposition (n.) known is not yet knowledge of anything: if we agree on it we have only set our watches, not measured time.
Philosophy (n.) faces this problem: how to tell the truth and pacify these strong prejudices in doing so.
Philosophy (n.) supplies remarks on the natural history of man: not curiosities, but facts no one doubted and no one noticed because they are always before our eyes.
Philosophy (n.) does well to answer a question with a question; an answer may easily be unfair, a counter-question is not.
Philosophy (n.) must find the series of questions that leads through the centre and out into the open — by new examples, never the hackneyed ones.
Logic (n.) presupposes human agreement — not agreement in opinions, much less in opinions about logic.
Logic (n.) is only an auxiliary technique in mathematics; to forget the special techniques is like saying cabinet-making consists in gluing.
Logic (n.) is pictured as a kind of ultra-physics, describing the world's logical structure as perceived by an ultra-experience.
Logic (n.) comes before any agreement between what is said and reality, as a method of measuring comes before any length is right or wrong.
Arithmetic (n.) would end if beans, sticks and fingers kept vanishing or multiplying when counted; 2 + 2 = 4 would become unusable.
An Arithmetic (n.) al proposition (n.) is an empirical proposition hardened into a rule, no longer tested by experience but used to judge it.
Arithmetic (n.) equating 625 and 25 × 25 is a grammatical trick that bars one kind of description and steers description into other channels.
An Arithmetic (n.) al proposition (n.) would become useless, not false, if confusion came; its sense, not its truth, rests on the regular working of measurement.
A Inference (n.) is one no experience can contradict without contradicting the premises — a movement within the means of representation.
Inference (n.) uses follows non-temporally — this follows from that — which shows it reports no experiment.
Inference (n.) is a transformation of our expression, like switching a ruler from inches to centimetres; its rightness rests on convention, use, and need.
Inference (n.) cannot be right or wrong, for they help fix the meaning of the signs.