[lit-ideas] Re: Philosophical points

Before I was so politely interrupted, I meant to continue..


--- On Wed, 19/3/08, Phil Enns <phil.enns@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> From: Phil Enns <phil.enns@xxxxxxxxxxx>
>  Put
> differently, under such particular conditions, I can
> imagine ruling
> out any sentence as being a scientific hypothesis.  After
> all, what
> sentence could not render peculiar 'meanings' that
> would render them
> unscientific?

Maybe so, but this would not effect the point Quine and Popper wish to make
nor should it be lightly accepted (by Phil's sheer repetition of the point) 
that the use of 'mortality' to connote 'death' (and related notions) is 
"peculiar", idiosyncratic etc. It is not a peculiar meaning given to 
"mortality" that renders 'All men are mortal' unfalsifiable by observation; as 
Quine explains (in the quotation given) it is because 'immortality' in denoting 
all future states of time is itself a 'universal', and therefore is not capable 
of being observed - this is a matter of ordinary logic rather than peculiar 
semantics.

Donal




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