The philosophy of Reuben Hersh

a nontechnical assessment

William Labov

pp. 351-354

in: Bharath Sriraman (ed), Humanizing mathematics and its philosophy, Basel, Birkhäuser, 2017

Abstract

Reuben Hersh and I attended Harvard College in the 1940s. It was during the Second World War, when, as it was said, "they let anyone in." The only training I had in mathematics was a first year Calculus course, and I have been trying to catch up ever since. Connections between philosophy and science may not have been as strong then as they are now. But I remember the reaction of my freshman advisor John Wild, a Thomist philosopher, when he spotted a Chemistry B course on my program. "Where," he asked, "did you get that idolatry of science?" I was stunned. "This man is really intelligent," I thought. "How could he tell from that one course that I have an idolatry of science? Because I do."

Cited authors

Wild John

Hersh Reuben