[lit-ideas] Re: Is 'All men are mortal' unscientific?
- From: wokshevs@xxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, Phil Enns <phil.enns@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 15 Mar 2008 18:13:53 -0230
The history of W. philosophy demonstrates quite convincingly that Phil is right
and Donal is wrong. Extrapolating to the present and future, philosophers'
success at receiving grants for their research projects would be unduly
constricted should "mortal" mean what Donal and his associates stipulate it to
mean. In an age when almost all grant monies are being funnelled into oil and
gas, pharmaceuticals, and the ethics of transvestitism, could we not see our
way to allow the philosophers a conception of "mortality" with a tad broader
intension (connotative range) than Donal is prepared to grant?
Wondering precisely when his mortal flesh will expire,
Walter O.
Director,
St. Paul's Cemetary and Crematorium
Quoting Phil Enns <phil.enns@xxxxxxxxxxx>:
> Donal McEvoy wrote:
>
> "I feel Phil is simply missing or obfuscating the underlying
> philosophical/logical point which concerns ..."
>
> Ah, that oh so mysterious 'philosophical point'. There is the
> ordinary meaning of the sentence 'All men are mortal' and then there
> is that special way of speaking/reading the sentence so that it has,
> as well, a 'philosophical meaning'. Perhaps one breathes heavier or
> speaks more reverently? It seems to me that either the ordinary
> meaning of the sentence 'All men are mortal' is important for any
> philosophical points one wants to make regarding that sentence, or
> one's philosophical point has nothing to do with the sentence.
>
> My initial comment regarded a quote provided by Donal, given here:
>
> "Quine also discusses 'All men are mortal', but he takes 'x is mortal'
> to mean 'there is a time t such that x dies at t'."
>
> 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.
> But that is quibbling. Second, the reduction of the meaning of the
> sentence to being about a point in time strikes me as mistaken.
> Mortality is not about a point in time but rather being subject to
> death. Hence my comments about a mortal being being one who would die
> if ... and here one gives a list of events that would normally lead to
> death. Finally, reducing mortality to time leads to the absurd notion
> that we somehow carry around our time of death as a function of being
> mortal.
>
> I couldn't care less about an argument over what does or does not
> count as a scientific statement, but I am happy to clear up confusions
> surrounding what the sentence 'All men are mortal' means.
>
>
> Donal continues:
>
> "... 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."
>
> I agree that it applies to all living persons, but it does not apply
> as a point in time. It may apply as an existential fact, as for
> example in Heidegger, or it may apply as a medical fact, as in a
> medical diagnosis, but only for a god does the fact of death include a
> point in time. Alas, I am not a god but a mere ...
>
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Phil Enns
> Yogyakarta, Indonesia
> ------------------------------------------------------------------
> To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off,
> digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html
>
------------------------------------------------------------------
To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off,
digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html
Other related posts:
