Stewart Shapiro, O’Donnell Professor of Philosophy at The Ohio State University, will speak about theories of the continuous on Friday, February 6, in the next Humanities Center Distinguished Lecture at UT.
Shapiro’s lecture, titled “Conceptions of the Continuous,” will begin at 3:30 p.m. in the Lindsay Young Auditorium of John C. Hodges Library, 1015 Volunteer Boulevard. It is free and open to the public.
In his talk, Shapiro will discuss the philosophy of mathematics. He will talk about the continuous, which is the infinite cardinality, or size, of the real numbers. Due to mathematicians having different intuitions—the ability to see what is reasonable or not—about the features of the continuous, he will argue that there is no one conception of the continuous.
Shapiro received his doctorate from State University of New York at Buffalo. He specializes in logic, philosophy of logic, and philosophy of mathematics.
Other lectures in the series include:
- March 14—David Sedley, Laurence Professor of Ancient Philosophy, University of Cambridge, “Epicurus on Taxonomy and Definition.”
- March 25—Gail Hershatter, Distinguished Professor of History, University of California, Santa Cruz, “Did Rural Chinese Women Have a Revolution? If So, What Remains?”
- April 2—Robert Darnton, Carl Pforzheimer University Professor and university librarian, Harvard University, “Books, Libraries, and the Digital Future.”
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CONTACT:
Amy Blakely (865-974-5034, ablakely@utk.edu)