Simplicity Made Difficult
John MacFarlane,
johnmacfarlane.net,
Feb 05, 2010
After railing recently in favour of simplicity, it seems fair to post on simplicity made difficult. The paper is philosophical and therefore (a) dry, and (b) entrenched in the view that everything must be propositional in nature. Hence, the theses 'simplicity' include, in part, "There are propositions and they instantiate the fundamental monadic properties of truth simpliciter and falsity simpliciter." Sigh. Yeah. Well, I said earlier than numbers are simple, and numbers aren't propositions (yes, but the statement that "numbers are simple" is a proposition). The error is in searching for some underlying essential property of 'simplicity'. Anyhow, I just thought it would be interesting to see some of the sort of thinking behind some of these concepts.
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