In general, I suspect it just isn’t really solving problems but eliding distinctions and ignoring problems (just based on what I do know and the relative shortness of this compared to most other work in philosophy of math).
This is not a good heuristic, because in philosophy, works tend to be longest when they’re confused, because most of the length tends to be spent repairing the damage caused by a mistake early on.
So philosophy can get long because the author is running damage control. True. But it can also be short because the author is trying to answer 5-6 questions at once without engaging with the arguments of those who argue against his position. So length by itself- maybe a bad heuristic. But I’m leveraging this heuristic with enough background to make it work.
This is not a good heuristic, because in philosophy, works tend to be longest when they’re confused, because most of the length tends to be spent repairing the damage caused by a mistake early on.
So philosophy can get long because the author is running damage control. True. But it can also be short because the author is trying to answer 5-6 questions at once without engaging with the arguments of those who argue against his position. So length by itself- maybe a bad heuristic. But I’m leveraging this heuristic with enough background to make it work.