[lit-ideas] Re: Is 'All men are mortal' unscientific?
- From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 16 Mar 2008 12:11:43 +0000 (GMT)
From: "Robert Paul" <rpaul@xxxxxxxx> Add sender to ContactsTo:
lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
"I was really worried though about Quine's definition. Surely, 'All men
are mortal' doesn't readily translate into a proposition about only one x. One
would hope that the original version there was a universal
quantifier, 'For all x, if x is a man, and so on and so on…'"
As I understand it, when Quine starts with "(x)", that "x" refers to any
'x' not a specific or particular or singular 'x'. To say that "(x)" is to say
"that for any given 'x'", not merely to say 'for some special or unique x'.
Once 'x' is deployed in this way it is clear that when speaking of 'x dies at
t', Quine is speaking of any given x. (And so is Popper)
This is doubly-clear when we consider that different 'x's will die at
different times. For "All men are mortal" may be put as saying that for any
given man ['x'] there will be a time t when that man dies: this does not imply
all the men or their times of death are identical of course, merely that they
all are subject to this universal 'fact of dying at some point in time'.
This use of (x) to mean 'for any given x' is taught here in secondary
school maths: so it is hardly that recondite or esoteric.
So I am unsure that Robert Paul has really anything much to be worried
about here, never mind "really worried". Have a chill-pill on this on me.
His worries are also not germane to the main point of Quine's and
Popper's discussion.
Donal
London
Soon to be on a double-decker bus
--- On Sat, 15/3/08, Robert Paul <rpaul@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
> From: Robert Paul <rpaul@xxxxxxxx>
> Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Is 'All men are mortal' unscientific?
> To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Date: Saturday, 15 March, 2008, 5:54 AM
> Phil wrote
>
> > This quote may be in the context of a discussion of
> what counts as
> > scientific and what doesn't, surely a pointless
> discussion in and of
> > itself since there is nothing that makes a statement
> scientific, but
> > it is wrong, in several ways, to claim that the
> sentence 'All men are
> > mortal' means 'there is a time t such that x
> dies at t'. First, it is
> > sloppy in that the word 'mortal' has a meaning
> beyond simply dying.
>
> I agree with Phil that an everyday sentence isn't't
> transformed into a
> 'philosophical sentence' by stipulation (and what
> would one stipulate,
> besides that?). Ordinary people like me don't like to
> have their
> language messed with; they're still worrying about
> which goes where in
> the case of 'this' and 'that,' which a man
> I met in a bar once said was
> a metaphysical question if there ever was one. He was
> right. It stumped
> both of us.
>
> I was really worried though about Quine's definition.
> Surely, 'All men
> are mortal' doesn't readily translate into a
> proposition about only one
> x. One would hope that the original version there was a
> universal
> quantifier, 'For all x, if x is a man, and so on and so
> on…' Moreover,
> in the sentence provided by Phil, x might, for all
> we're told, range
> over rocks, books, or cheap plastic razors.
>
> Robert Paul
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