{"id":9869,"date":"2012-03-10T16:11:36","date_gmt":"2012-03-10T16:11:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2012\/03\/10\/the-stromboli-puzzle\/"},"modified":"2012-03-10T16:11:36","modified_gmt":"2012-03-10T16:11:36","slug":"the-stromboli-puzzle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2012\/03\/10\/the-stromboli-puzzle\/","title":{"rendered":"The Stromboli Puzzle"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Stromboli_0607\"<\/a>
<\/span><\/p>\n

Here is another puzzle London Ed may enjoy.  Is the following argument valid or invalid:<\/span><\/p>\n

An island volcano exists.<\/span>
Stromboli is an island volcano.<\/span>
Ergo<\/span>
Stromboli exists.<\/span><\/p>\n

The argument appears valid, does it not?  But it can't be valid if it falls afoul of the dreaded quaternio terminorum<\/em>, or 'four-term fallacy.'  And it looks like it does.  On the standard Frege-Russell analysis, 'exists' in the major is a second-level predicate: it predicates of the concept island volcano<\/em> the property of being instantiated, of having one or more instances.  'Exists' in the conclusion, however, cannot possibly be taken as a second-level predicate: it cannot possibly be taken to predicate instantiation of  Stromboli.  "Exists' in the conclusion is a first-level predicate.  Since 'exists' is used in two different senses, the argument is invalid.  And yet it certainly appears valid.  How solve this?<\/span><\/p>\n

(Addendum, Sunday morning<\/em>: this is not a good example for reasons mentioned in the ComBox.  But my second example does the trick.)<\/span><\/p>\n

The same problem arise with this argument:<\/span><\/p>\n

Stromboli exists.<\/span>
Stromboli is an island volcano.<\/span>
Ergo<\/span>
An island volcano exists.<\/span><\/p>\n

This looks to be an instance of Existential Generalization.  How can it fail to be valid?  But how can it be valid given the equivocation on 'exists'?  Please don't say the the first premise is redundant.  If Stromboli did not exist, if it were a Meinongian nonexistent object, then Existential<\/em> Generalization could not be performed, given, as Quine says, that "Existence is what existential quantification expresses."<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here is another puzzle London Ed may enjoy.  Is the following argument valid or invalid: An island volcano exists.Stromboli is an island volcano.ErgoStromboli exists. The argument appears valid, does it not?  But it can't be valid if it falls afoul of the dreaded quaternio terminorum, or 'four-term fallacy.'  And it looks like it does.  On the … Continue reading “The Stromboli Puzzle”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[142,408,108],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-existence","category-language-philosophy-of","category-logica-docens"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9869"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9869\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}