Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

Category: Language, Philosophy of

  • Fused Participles and Ontology

    Let's begin by reviewing some grammar.  'Walking' is the present participle of the infinitive 'to walk.'  Present participles are formed by adding -ing to the verb stem, in our example, walk.  Participles can be used either nominally or adjectivally.  A participle used nominally is called a gerund.  A gerund is a verbal noun that shares…

  • Arguing with Brightly over Ficta

    Earlier I wrote that the central problem in the philosophy of fiction is to find a solution to the following aporetic dyad: 1. There are no purely fictional items. 2. There are some purely fictional items. The problem is that while the limbs of the dyad cannot both be true, there is reason to think…

  • Saying and Asserting are Not the Same

    To utter a declarative sentence is to say it.  But the saying of a declarative sentence need not be an asserting of it or its content.  Suppose I want to give an example of a declarative sentence in a language class.  I say, "The average temperature on Mars is the same as on Earth."  I…

  • London Paraphrastics Questioned

    To block the inference from 1. Frodo is a hobbit to 2. There are hobbits we can invoke story operators and substitute for (1) 1*. In the Tolkien story, Frodo is a hobbit. From (1*) one cannot validly infer (2).  So far, so good.  But what about the true 3. Frodo is a purely fictional…

  • An Active-Passive Puzzle

    UPDATE (7/31):  The following entry is deeply confused.  But I will leave it up for the sake of the  commenters, David Gordon and AJ,  who refuted it.  In my defense I will say something Roderick Chisholm once said about himself in a similar connection, namely, that I wrote something clear enough to be mistaken. …………..…

  • A Paraphrastic Approach to Fictional Sentences

    Here is a dyad for your delectation: 1. There are no purely fictional characters. 2. There are some purely fictional characters, e.g., Sherlock Holmes. (1) looks to be an analytic truth: by definition, what is purely fictional is not, i.e., does not exist.  But (2) also seems to be true.  And yet they cannot both…

  • London Ed on Peter van Inwagen on Fiction

    Comments by BV in blue. Inwagen gives persuasive arguments that there is only one sort of existential quantifier, that we cannot quantify over ‘things’ that are in some sense ‘beyond being’, and that ‘exists’ means the same as ‘is’ or ‘has being’. No review of his work would be complete without a careful discussion of…

  • Do Purely Fictional Items Exist? On Van Inwagen’s Theory of Ficta

    A character in a novel is an example of a purely fictional item provided that the character is wholly 'made up' by the novelist.  Paul Morphy, for example, is a character in Francis Parkinson Keyes' historical novel, The Chess Players but he is also a real-life 19th century New Orleans chess prodigy.  So Paul Morphy,…

  • London Ed on Reference to What is Not

    Two weeks in Greece passed both quickly and slowly.  No access to internet or phone, much walking (on a lonely hillside I found a deserted monastery built on the ruins of a 6th century pagan temple) and much thinking.  In particular, thinking about the 'Meinongian' thesis that there are objects that do not exist, and…

  • An Inferential Semantics for Empty Names?

    London Ed submits this for our evaluation: While apparently conceding that empty proper names have an 'inferential role', rightly underscores the need for me to demonstrate that its meaning is just this role, i.e. to demonstrate that the 'inferential semantics' is a sufficient as well as a necessary explanation of (empty) proper names. Here are…

  • Must Singular Thoughts be Object-Dependent?

    What follows are some ideas from London Ed about a book he is writing.  He solicits comments.  Mine are in blue. The logical form thing was entertaining but rather off-topic re the fictional names thing. On which, Peter requested some more.  Let’s step right back. I want to kick off the book with an observation…

  • Validity and Semantics: Will the Real Frodo Baggins Please Stand Up?

    London Ed writes, It is a well-known and puzzling fact that proper names are ambiguous. According to the US telephone directory, Frodo Baggins is a real person (who lives in Ohio). But according to LOTR, Frodo Baggins is a hobbit. Not a problem. The name ‘Frodo Baggins’ as used in LOTR, clearly has a different…

  • On the Enforcing and Permitting of Coreferentiality by Argument-Forms

    This argument is invalid: Cicero was a RomanTully was a philosopher—–Some Roman was a philosopher. Quite simply, there is no middle term. The example is an instance of the dreaded quaternio terminorum. But of course we learned at Uncle Willard's knee that Cicero = Tully. Add that fact as a premise and the above argument…

  • Comments on London Ed’s “Towards a Positive Theory”

     My comments are in blue. 1. Another claim which is nearly Moorean.  I claim that the following argument is valid: Frodo is a hobbitFrodo has large feetSome hobbit has large feet I am not saying that the premisses are true. Clearly if there are no such things as hobbits, the first sentence has to be…

  • Talk is Cheap?

    Often it is. But the right word, at the right time, addressed to the right person, spoken from the heart with purity of intent can be priceless.