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PARTISAN REVIEW
Part Two. Rethinking the Western Tradition
in Politics and CuRure
Igor Webb:
Probably no other nation is as intimately connected with the
Enlightenment, for better or for worse, than the United States, created
from a doctrine of self-evident truths, apprehensible by the rational fac–
ulty of every person, that together with each person's inalienable rights
was seen to compose the fundaments of a Universal Man with a repre–
sentative form of government.
Two centuries later, it's easy to see that we seem to have a great
many petty interests without transcending unity or ideal. So as we look to
the next century, we must ask whether the vision of the founders lives or
whether we need to start anew. If we are to start anew, what principles
can we call upon to guide us? The chair of this afternoon's panel is our
trustee John Silber. He is our nation's leading college president, not be–
cause of his success as manager, fundraiser, or lobbyist, but because almost
uniquely, he has exemplified the idea of a leader, of a university teacher–
who can call us to our duty, raise our sights, and embody the ways and
graces of genuine intellectual striving and achievement.
John Silber:
It is a pleasure to be here. The last time I was on the campus
of Adelphi was in 1985, when I spoke at the inauguration of Adelphi's
president, Peter Diamandopoulos. And now in this centennial program,
we celebrate the life of reason and of the mind.
This morning Professor Wilson offered us a brilliant overview of the
power and the achievement of the sciences in their many interconnected
fields. He noted three characteristics: the boundless curiosity and deter–
mination of scientists; the intense power of analysis; and the remarkable
but inexplicable mysterious effectiveness of mathematics in elucidating the
scientific phenomenon. Philosophers such as Bertrand Russell and Alfred
North Whitehead derived mathematics from an analytic set of definitions.
Consequently, while they could not achieve truth in mathematics, they
could achieve certainty based on those definitions. It was
all
analytic. And
yet Russell observed, two Englishmen plus two Englishmen give you four
Englishmen. And for that there is no explanation in terms of analytic
mathematics. There are constructivists in mathematics, such as Paul
Laurentian, who pointed out that no one would fly to the moon on the
basis of a set of calculations that are merely beautiful but are not true.
Consequently, he proposed to derive mathematics in an entirely different
way so that truth could be achieved through a constructivist approach.
Yet why should true mathematics work any better in the physical uni-
