Sylvan's box: A short story and ten morals
type: Item
instance of: scholarly article
title: Sylvan's box: A short story and ten morals
zbMATH Open document ID: 0926.03003
author: Graham Priest
published in: Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic
publication date: 1999-11-29T00:00:00Z
review text: A writer of fiction may include physically impossible events and objects, from faster-than-light travel to fire-breathing vertebrates, and describe them in as much detail as desired. A writer of fiction may include the mathematically impossible, introducing a character who has squared the circle or discovered the greatest prime; but cannot go into detail about these achievements, on pain of incoherence. This, at least, is the received wisdom. Graham Priest, as an exponent of paraconsistent logic, dissents, and to make good his dissent has written a fictional story which tells how he and Nick Griffin, Richard Sylvan's literary executor, discovered among Richard's things an impossible object; and describes what they decided to do with it (which is, naturally enough, something impossible). He then draws lessons, mostly contrary to the received wisdom, from the story.
reviewed by: Jim Mackenzie
Mathematics Subject Classification ID: 03A05
Mathematics Subject Classification ID: 03B53
zbMATH DE Number: 1246393
zbMATH Keywords: consistency
zbMATH Keywords: inconsistency
zbMATH Keywords: fiction
zbMATH Keywords: impossible object
Wikidata QID: Q30047526
MaRDI profile type: Publication
full work available at URL: https://doi.org/10.1305/ndjfl/1039540770
OpenAlex ID: W2061957988
cites work: Q4223146
cites work: A relevant theory of conditionals
cites work: Q3992933
cites work: Q4692665
cites work: Q4856957
cites work: Q4385352
DOI: 10.1305/NDJFL/1039540770
description: scientific article; zbMATH DE number 1246393