“The Julius Caesar Problem and Invariance” by Dr. Francesca Boccuni, Lecturer in Logic, University Vita-Salute San Raffaele
www.francescaboccuni.wordpress.com
DATE: Tue, 19 January 2016
TIME: 15:00-17:00
PLACE: G-160
Abstract:
I will tackle the so-called Julius Caesar problem, which concerns the inability of *Hume’s Principle, *Frege’s way of carving out the cardinal numbers, to distinguish between objects of different sorts. Hume’s principle says that the number of F is the same as the number of Y just in case X and Y are equinumerous (i.e. can be put into a 1-1 mapping). In Frege’s provocative example, how can we know that the reference of *the number of coffee shops on Bilkent Campus*, as specified by Hume’s principle, picks out the number 2 instead of Julius Caesar. I will suggest a solution to this vexed problem in terms of arbitrary reference, which will be further specified via isomorphism Invariance.