Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

Category: Language, Philosophy of

  • What Problem Does Literary Fiction Pose?

    More than one.  Here is one.  And as old Chisholm used to say, you are not philosophizing unless you have a puzzle.  So try on this aporetic triad for size: 1. Purely fictional objects do not exist. 2. There are true  sentences about purely fictional objects, e.g., 'Sherlock Holmes is a detective' and 'Sherlock Holmes…

  • Fiction and Alienans Adjectives

    David Brightly comments: As you use them, the terms 'fictional', 'intentional', 'possible', 'incomplete', and others like 'past' have a distinctive effect on the concept terms they qualify. Ordinary adjectives have the effect of narrowing the extension of the concept term they qualify: the red balls are a subset of the balls, the female prime ministers…

  • More on Ficta and Impossibilia

    As an ornery aporetician, I want ultimately to say that an equally strong case can be made both for and against the thesis that ficta are impossibilia.  But here I only make (part of) the case for thinking that ficta are impossibilia. Preliminaries Every human being is either right-handed or not right-handed.  (But if one…

  • Five Time-Related Senses of ‘Is’

    I dedicate this post to that loveable rascal Bill Clinton who taught us just how much can ride on what the meaning of 'is' is. Credit where credit is due: Some of the inspiration for this post comes from a conversation with Peter Lupu and from an article he recommended, S. Savitt, Presentism and Eternalism…

  • Can a Thing Exist Without Existing Now?

    Clearly, a thing can exist without existing here.  The Washington Monument exists but not in my backyard.   Accordingly, 'x exists here' can be split up as follows: 1. x exists here iff (i) x exists & (ii) x is in the vicinity of the speaker. It seems pretty obvious that existence and the indexical property…

  • Caesar Is No More: The Aporetics of Reference to the Past

    Here is London Ed's most recent version of his argument in his own words except for one word I added in brackets: 1. There is no such thing as Caesar any more. 2. The predicate 'there is no such thing as — any more' is satisfied by Caesar. 3. If a relation obtains [between] x…

  • Scollay Square No Longer Exists

    London Ed sends me a puzzle that I will formulate in my own way. 1. Boston's Scollay Square no longer exists. Hence 'Scollay Square no longer exists' is true. 2. Removing 'Scollay Square' from the closed sentence yields the open sentence, or predicate, or sentential function, '____ no longer exists.' 3. If a subject-predicate sentence…

  • Quantificational Uses of ‘Crap’

    Crap, diddlysquat, squat, shit, jackshit, jack. Crap and cognates as universal quantifiers.  It is indeed curious that words for excrement can assume this logical role. 'No one owes you crap' = 'No one owes you anything' = 'Nothing is such that anyone owes it to you' = 'Everything is such that no one owes it…

  • Being is Said in Many Ways: On the Uses of ‘Is’

    Chad reports: In the opening pages of More Kinds of Being: A Further Study of Individuation, Identity, and the Logic of Sortal Terms (Blackwell, 2009), E. J. Lowe distinguishes five uses of ‘is’ as a copula: 1. The ‘is’ of attribution, as in ‘Socrates is wise’ and ‘Grass is green’.2. The ‘is’ of identity, as…

  • Is the Skeleton of a Cat Feline in the Same Sense as a Cat is Feline?

    I put the question to Manny K. Black, brother of Max Black, but all I got was a yawn for my trouble.  The title question surfaced in the context of a discussion of mereological models of the Trinity.  Each of the three Persons is God.  But we saw that the 'is' cannot be read as the 'is'…

  • Against Ostrich Nominalism

    As magnificent a subject as philosophy is, grappling as it does with the ultimate concerns of human existence, and thus surpassing in nobility any other human pursuit, it is also miserable in that nothing goes uncontested, and nothing ever gets established to the satisfaction of all competent practitioners.  (This is true of other disciplines as well,…

  • Gilson and the Avicennian-Thomistic Common Natures Argument

    Chapter III of Etienne Gilson's Being and Some Philosophers is highly relevant to my ongoing discussion of common natures.    Gilson appears to endorse the classic argument for the doctrine of common natures in the following passage (for the larger context see here):  Out of itself, animal is neither universal nor singular.  Indeed, if, out of itself,…

  • Beating the Dead Horse of the Thin Theory Some More

    It is obviously true that something exists.  This is not only true, but known with certainty to be true:  I think, therefore I exist, therefore something exists.  That is my Grand Datum, my datanic starting point.  Things exist!  Now it seems perfectly clear to me that 'Something exists' cannot be translated adequately as 'Something is…

  • My Argument That ‘Exist(s)’ is not Univocal Revisited: No ‘Is’ of Predication?

    On August 11th I wrote: Suppose we acquiesce for the space of this post in QuineSpeak.  Then 'Horses exist' says no more and no less than that 'Something is a horse.'  And 'Harry exists' says no more and no less than that 'Something is Harry.'  But the 'is' does not have the same sense in…

  • Existentials and Their Equivalents: Aid and Comfort for the Thin Theory?

    I grant that logical equivalents not containing 'exist(s)' or cognates can be supplied for all singular and general existentials.  Thus, 'Socrates exists' can be translated, salva veritate, as 'Something is identical to Socrates,' or, in canonical notation,  '(∃x)(x = Socrates).'  Accordingly, Socrates exists =df (∃x)(x = Socrates). But if the definiens preserves the truth of the definiendum,…