The Philosophical Misconceptions of the Incompleteness Theorem

Online
Readings

We discussed some popular misinterpretations of Gödel’s Theorem.

These were (1) Lucas/Penrose style of arguments against mechanism, (2) GIT as a confirmation of Platonism, (3) The “postmodern” interpretation.

The talk was given by Jan Gronwald.

Main Readings:

  • (Benacerraf, 1967) God, the Devil and Gödel. in: The Monist 51(1): pp. 9-32.

  • (Copeland and Shagrir, 2013), Turing versus Gödel on Computability and the Mind, in: B. Copeland, C. Posy, O. Shagrir (ed.), „Computability: Turing, Gödel, Church, and Beyond”. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

  • (Krajewski, 2020) On the Anti-Mechanist Arguments Based on Gödel’s Theorem, in: „Studia Semiotyczne”, doi.org/10.26333/sts.xxxiv1.02.

  • (Shapiro, 2016) Idealization, Mechanism, and Knowability, in: L. Horsten, P. Welch (ed.), „Gödel’s Disjunction: The scope and limits of mathematical knowledge”. Oxford Univ. Press

  • (Wang, 1974). From Mathematics to Philosophy. Oxon: Routledge

Additional Bibliography

  • (Lucas, 1961) Minds, Machines and Gödel, in: „Philosophy”, Vol. 36, No. 137. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press

  • (Turing, 1950) Computing machinery and intelligence. Mind, 433-460