Category: Language, Philosophy of
-
Some Questions about Thinking, Relations, and Relational Expressions
Bill, you said by email earlier that the sentence “Jake is thinking of Zeus” would be true if Jake was indeed thinking of Zeus. BV: That's what I said, although I would put 'is' where you have 'was.' Is what I said a shocking thing to say? I have questions for you about the terms…
-
Untangling Plato’s Beard
I was asked by a commenter what motivates the thin theory of existence. One motivation is . . . the old Platonic riddle of nonbeing. Nonbeing must in some sense be, otherwise what is it that there is not? This tangled doctrine might be nicknamed Plato's beard; historically it has proved tough, frequently dulling the…
-
Lukáš Novák on Reference to What is Not
What follows is a re-do of an entry that first saw the light of the blogosphere on the 4th of July, 2014. The draft Lukáš Novák (on my left in the photo) sent me back then for my comments has since appeared in print in Maimonides on God and Duns Scotus on Logic and Metaphysics …
-
Secure Epistemic Foundations, Language, and Reality
This from Grigory Aleksin: I have been doing some reading and thinking, and there are a few things that I cannot quite get my head around. I was wondering whether you could help me, or point me in the direction of some work on the issue. My somewhat naive task has been to try and…
-
A Most Remarkable Prophecy
The Question Suppose there had been a prophet among the ancient Athenians who prophesied the birth among them of a most remarkable man, a man having the properties we associate with Socrates, including the property of being named 'Socrates.' Suppose this prophet, now exceedingly old, is asked after having followed Socrates' career and having witnessed…
-
It Is What It Is
Maybe not. It all depends on what the meaning of 'is' is. (If you are old enough to get the joke, you are old.) Seriously, though, the above-captioned saying is seeing quite a lot of use lately, or it was ten years ago. It is a sort of present-tensed Que sera, sera. Things are the…
-
In Vino Veritas
Literally, "in wine, (there is) truth." But the sentence does not bear its meaning on its semantic sleeve. What the familiar Latin saying is used to express, by those who use it correctly, is the thought that a person under the influence of alcohol is less likely to dissemble and more likely to speak his…
-
Intentionality for Third-World Entities?
Commenter John and I are having a very productive discussion about intentionality. I thank him for helping me clarify my thoughts about this fascinating topic. I begin with some points on which (I think) John and I agree. a) There is a 'third world' or third realm and it is the realm of abstracta. (I…
-
Excluded Middle, Bivalence, and Disquotation
LEM: For every p, p v ~p. BV: Every proposition is either true or false. These principles are obviously not identical. Excluded Middle is syntactic principle, a law of logic, whereas Bivalence is a semantic principle. The first says nothing about truth or falsity. The second does. (See Michael Dummett, Truth and Other Enigmas, Harvard…
-
Do Fire Alarms Make Assertions?
The Opponent writes, The alarm means 'there is a fire in the building'. An assertion has taken place, that there is a fire. But it is triggered by a sensor in the building. So asserting is not just something people do. This is a loose way of talking quite in order in ordinary life, but…
-
Atomic Sentences and Syncategorematic Elements
The Ostrich tells me that Frege has no copula. That's not wrong, but there is a nuance that muddies the waters. Suppose Al is fat. The symbolization as Fa suggests the absence of a copula and thus the absence of a syncategorematic element. There appears to be only two categorematic elements, a and F. Well,…
-
Implication and Presupposition
Dave Bagwill asks: To be more clear: Do all propositions imply an ontology? Is 'imply' strong enough to bear the weight of 'assertion'? Or is 'imply' basically an equivalent of 'presuppose'? Still not clear enough. Dave. Not even the third question is clear since you didn't specify the sense of 'imply.' But the third question…
-
More on Assertion and Presupposition
I continue to worry this technical bone, which is not a mere technicality, inasmuch as the topic of presupposition opens out upon some very Big Questions indeed. Anyway, back to work. I thank Ed Buckner for getting me going on this. ………………… It should be obvious that one does not assert everything that the content…
-
Did Kepler Die in Misery?
Either he did or he didn't. Suppose I say that he did, and you say that he didn't. We both presuppose, inter alia, that there was a man named 'Kepler.' Now that proposition that we both presuppose, although entailed both by Kepler died in misery and Kepler did not die in misery is no part…
-
Assertion and Presupposition: An Argument for a Distinction
1) Someone, such as Sophomore Sam, who asserts that there are no truths does not assert that there are truths. And yet 2) That there are no truths entails that there is at least one truth. (Why? Because it is impossible for the first proposition to be true and the second false.) Therefore 3) If…