Rota's philosophical insights
pp. 241-249
in: Ernesto Damiani, Vincenzo Marra, Fabrizio Palombi (eds), From combinatorics to philosophy, Berlin, Springer, 2009Abstract
There is a story, told by Fabrizio Palombi, about Gian-Carlo Rota and the philosopher Willard van Orman Quine, according to which, during a meeting at the American Academy in Boston attended by both, Quine invited the audience to take Rota's mathematical inquiries very seriously, but to ignore his philosophical investigations (Palombi, 2003, p. 40). After reading Rota's philosophical papers, however, and thus disregarding Quine's advice, I have the impression that Quine's judgement was unfair. First of all, Rota belonged to the philosophical tradition of phenomenology and this, as a long honored branch of contemporary philosophy, is far from deserving the fate of being ignored.
