Quine in Purgatory

Let us suppose that the prayers of the faithful have resulted in the assignment of the logician W. V. Quine and the mathematician Gian-Carlo Rota to Purgatory rather than Hell (where many Christians may feel both belong).

Part of the purgatorial retraining of both men, both professors, might consist in their teaching one another. Rota could benefit from Quine's morality--

"On the Nature of Moral Values" in Theories and Things, Harvard, 1981

And Quine could benefit from Rota's intellect--

"The Leading Line of Schaum's Outlines," in Indiscrete Thoughts, Birkhauser, 1997

Common ground for the lessons taught by Quine to Rota, and vice-versa, might be furnished by the religious symbol shown at right.

A preliminary discussion of this symbol may be found in the following:

• From a Logical Point of View, by W. V. Quine, Second Edition, revised, Harvard, 1980, pages 72-74
• Schaum's Outline of Combinatorics, by V. K. Balakrishnan, McGraw-Hill, 1995, the final problem (4.114, page 180)
• The attached notes [on paper, in the original] by S. H. Cullinane. (For further combinatorial results obtained by coloring and rearranging parts of the above symbol, see the website "Diamond Theory.")

An excellent starting point for the Rota-Quine dialogue would be Rota's essay (pages 188-191 in Indiscrete Thoughts) on Heidegger's mystery of Fundierung, or what "is" is.