[lit-ideas] Re: Is 'All men are mortal' unscientific?
- From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 14 Mar 2008 16:02:18 +0000 (GMT)
--- On Thu, 13/3/08, Phil Enns <phil.enns@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Donal McEvoy wrote:
>
> "The fact of death means their was a time that X was
> alive and a later
> time when x was dead. This fact is enough to show
> mortality whether
> or not we know the cause of death ..."
>
> I don't know what the 'fact of death' refers to
> when talking about a
> person still living.
I feel Phil is simply missing or obfuscating the underlying
philosophical/logical point which concerns the unfalsifible character of
propositions lacking a finite F-range (as explained by Popper and Quine).
This at first sight may seem paradoxical in this case - for one might think
there is ample observational evidence that it is true that 'All men are
mortal', and thus it must be scientific. Yet, unless we deploy some more
sophisticated approach which would involve taking us beyond the simple
proposition 'All men are mortal', that simple proposition is unfalsifiable and
is therefore unscientific.
That aside, two comments on Phil's response: clearly we cannot say of a "person
still living" that they are in fact dead, and in this sense the 'fact of death'
does not apply to them; equally all persons who are living do face, whether
consciously or not, the 'fact of death' - and in this sense the 'fact of death'
applies to all living persons. This is trivial. Yet the fact an interesting
philosophical/logical point produces from Phil a response that only leads us
into discussing irrelevant trivialities is really not my fault.
>If we are talking about a person who
> is dead,
> then the statement 'X is mortal' is hardly an
> interesting one.
No: but it is Phil's response - not the philosophical/logical point at issue -
that leads us to such uninteresting trivialities. Quine and Popper tend to
avoid them like the plague - although many other philosophers deal in them like
they are their hard currency.
> I had written:
>
> "Or, to be mortal is to be subject to all the
> weaknesses and
> vulnerabilities one normally ascribes to human life."
>
> to which Donal replied:
>
> "I am subject to these but am not therefore dead.
> Both these
> approaches to death seem to confuse the concept with the
> concept of
> 'causes of death' and of 'nornal human
> frailty' and this seems odd to
> me."
>
> One of the definitions of 'mortal' is being human.
_Perhaps_ ("perhaps", because even this meaning surely relies on the meaning of
'mortal' where it involves the concept of 'death' - as in "mere mortal" when
predicated of a living person). But this is clearly not the sense used in the
philosophical/logical point raised - otherwise the proposition being debated
would be 'All men are human'. A triviality, and one that does not raise the
philosophical/point that Popper and Quine are discussing. That Phil can miss
the point so spectacularly is clearly no one's fault but his. Whether anyone
wants to follow him into pointing out or discussing trivial irrelevancies is
surely up to them. For now I feel I've said and had enough.
Sincerely,
Donal
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