The Incomplete Universe: Totality, Knowledge, and Truth (A Bradford Book) - Softcover

Grim, Patrick

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0262519119 ISBN 13: 9780262519113

Publisher: MIT Press, 1991

Synopsis

The central claim of this powerful philosophical exploration is that within any logic we have, there can be no coherent notion of all truth or of total knowledge. Grim examines a series of logical paradoxes and related formal results to reveal their implications for contemporary epistemology, metaphysics, and the philosophy of religion. He reaches the provocative conclusion that, if the universe is thought of in terms of its truths, it is essentially open and incomplete. The Incomplete Universe includes detailed work on the liar paradox and recent attempts at solution, Kaplan and Montague's paradox of the knower, the Gödel theorems and related incompleteness phenomena, and new forms of Cantorian argument. The emphasis throughout is philosophical rather than formal, with an eye to connection's with possible worlds, the notion of omniscience, and the opening lines of the Tractatus: "The world is all that is the case. "

About this title

About the Author

Patrick Grim is Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the State University of New York at Stony Brook.

Edition details

• Publisher: MIT Press
• Publication date: 1991
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0262519119
• ISBN 13: 9780262519113
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 181