🚀 go-pugleaf

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In article <9170@medusa.cs.purdue.edu> muttiah@cs.purdue.edu (Ranjan Samuel Muttiah) writes:
>Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz wrote a letter to Hobbes in the form
>of a dialogue.  (It is presumed that that A is really Hobbes).
>It was written in 1677 when Leibniz was just 24 years old!
		      ^ X- should be 1670.

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On popular demand the dialogue continues:
 
I am very happy to see that a brand new book is available on some 
of his essays, including this dialogue.
 
                G.W. Leibniz.
                Philosophical Essays
 
                Translated by: 
                Roger Ariew  
                Daniel Garber

		Hackett Publishing Company (1989)
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A. But we should try for a reconciliation. Do you think that all of
   the thoughts there can be are actually formed ? Or, to speak
   more clearly, do you think that all propositions are being
   thought ?

B. I don't think so.

A. Therefore, you see that truth pertains to propositions or to
   thoughts, but to propositions or thoughts that are possible, so
   that, at very least, we can be certain that if anyone were to
   think in this way or in its opposite, his thought would be true
   or false.

B. You seem nicely to have rescued us from that slippery place.

A. But since there must be reason why a given thought is going to be
   true or false, where, I ask, shall we look for it ?

B. In the nature of things, I think.

A. What if it arises from your own nature ?

B. Certainly not from there alone.  For it is neccessary that my
   nature and the nature of things that I'm thinking about are such
   that, when I proceed using a legitimate method, I infer a 
   proposition of the sort that is at issue, that is, I find a
   true proposition.

A. You repond nicely, But there are difficulties.

B. What are they, I beg of you ?

A. Certain learned men think that truth arises from decisions people
   make, and from name or characters.

B. This view is quite paradoxical.

A. But they prove it this way: Isn't a definition a starting place
   for a demonstration ?

B. I admit that it is, for some propositions can be demonstrated only
   from definitions joined to one another.

A. Therefore, the truth of such propositions depends on defintions.

B. I concede that.

A. But defintions depend upon our decision.

B. How so ?

A. Don't you see that it is a matter of decision among mathematicians
   to use the word "ellipse" in such a way that it signifies a
   particular figure ? Or that it is was a matter of decision among
   the Latins to impose on the word "circulus" the meaning that the
   definition expresses ?

B. But what follows ? There can be thoughts without words.

A. But not wihout some other signs.  See whether you can do any
   arithmetic calculation without numerical signs, I ask.

B. I am very disturbed, for I didn't think that characters or signs
   were so necessary for reasoning.

A. Therefore, the truths of arithmetic presuppose certain signs or
   characters ?

B. That must be admitted.

A. Therefore, they depend upon human decision.

B. You seem to have trapped me through trickery, as it were.

A. These views are not mine, but belong to quite an ingenious writer.

B. Can anyone depart so far from good sense as to convince himself
   that truth is arbitrary and depends on names, when it is agreed
   that the Greeks, the Latins, and the Germans all have the same
   geometry ?

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To be continued ...