[lit-ideas] Re: What is a transcendental claim?

Please scroll down to "non sequitor:" --------------->



Quoting Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>:

> Perhaps I should be boning up the TLP and not putting my nose in here, but
> just some comment on the very last part:-
> 
> 
> --- On Sat, 20/12/08, Eric Dean <ecdean99@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> 
> > It seems to me that all general claims can be restated as
> > conditions for the possibility of experiences, 
> 
> But not necessarily is the re-statement valid, and in re-stating we have to
> bear in mind different kinds of possibility: see below. 
> 
> >so for the
> > term 'transcendental' to distinguish some general
> > claims from others it must be distinguishing them either in
> > terms of the types of condition, types of experience, the
> > scope of 'conditions' or the scope of
> > 'experiences, or in some other way.  
> 
> > To illustrate the assertion that all general claims can be
> > restated as conditions for the possibility of experiences
> > consider:
> > 
> > a. This stove never works right.
> > b. It is a condition of the possibility of using this stove
> > that the attempt will be frustrated. 
> 
> Let us say that 'a.' = There is no occasion on which this particular stove
> will ever work right.
> And say that 'b.' = It is _not possible_ that this particular stove will work
> ever right.
> 
> We might agree that for anything to be actual it must be possible (i.e.
> 'possibly actual'):- this means that from (the truth of) 'a.' we can deduce,
> trivially, that _it is possible_ that there is no occasion on which this
> particular stove will ever work right. After all if it is not possible, it
> cannot be actually the case that 'a.'.

---------------> Non Sequitor:

It is surely true, as Donal writes, that if P is actual, then P
must be possible. But Donal goes on to claim in his example that from 'a'
("There is no occasion on which this particular stove will ever work right") we
can "trivially deduce" the conclusion: "It is possible that there is no
occasion
on which this particular stove will ever work right." As such, Donal maintains
that from the actuality claimed in 'a', the possibility claim in the conclusion
necessarily follows. 

I believe that the deduction is neither trivial nor valid, and I also am
prepared to go on record for saying that  I believe the Toronto Maple Leafs
have a better chance of winning the Stanley Cup this year than Donal's
deducation has of being sound. Where have things
gone wrong. Surely in incorrectly rendering equivalent the expression "it must
be possible" and "it is possible." 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Interlude: (Didn't Newton do this in his *Natural Philosophy* text? Or was it
Galileo?)  Funny story, true story, of course. We have a new chancellor here at
MUN, some general from the Canadian army - Hillier, I think his name is.
Anyway,
he tells the story that the Stanley Cup was flown into Kandahar for the troops
to see. One of the troops told Hillier: "You realize, sir, that the Taliban are
now closer to the Stanley Cup than the Toronto Maple leafs are." We laughed
politely and then he left.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
OK, where were we?, oh yes:

To claim the actuality of P is not necessarily to claim the possibility of P.
Although, as mentioned above, to claim the actuality of P is indeed to claim
that P "must be possible." An honest pre-owned car dealer - yes, we know what
he
really is - may well aver: "Friend, don't even think about it. That heap will
never run again." On the other hand, a somewhat less than fully candid and
scrupulous dealer may well tell you: "Friend, she's a good lookin'
machine, ain't she. A real Z-28. But I should tell you that it's possible, only
possible, mind you, that she'll never run again."

Walter O
MUN



> 
> But this deduction would not necessarily validate 'b.': for the _possibility_
> that 'a.' is compatible with the _possibility_ that 'non-a.'; this is so even
> if it is impossible that 'a.' and 'non-a' are both 'actual' or 'the case'.
> That is, while my dog cannot at the same time have four legs and not have
> four legs, it may still be the case that it is possible that he has four legs
> and possible that he does not - in other words, it may still be the case that
> neither condition is an 'impossibility'.
> 
> This is so whether we take possible/impossible to refer to what is
> _logically_ possible/impossible or whether we take it refer to what is
> _empirically_ possible/impossible.
> 
> Yet 'b.' goes beyond all this and asserts that 'non-a.' is _not possible_
> (rather than merely assert that 'non-a.' is not actual or actually the case,
> which may be deduced from 'a.'). In this way 'b.' cannot be deduced from 'a.'
> since the truth of 'a.' may be a contingent truth, and so its truth does not
> preclude _the possibility of its negation having been true in another
> logically conceivable world_. 
> 
> In saying 'a.' may be a contingent truth, it may be either logically
> contingent or empirically contingent.
> 
> It is possible to have a universal generalisation ['UG'] that is empirically
> contingent (in which case it will be logically contingent). Take the UG "All
> dodo birds die before they reach a height greater than four feet". We may
> show that no dodo ever did reach a height greater than four feet, and may
> show that since it is now extinct there will never be a dodo greater than
> four feet high: so the UG is valid. But the UG, though valid, does not
> therefore necessarily point to either an empirical or a logical necessity: it
> might well be logically conceivable, and there might be no empirical laws
> that would prohibit this occurring, that at least one dodo _might_ have
> reached a height greater than four feet - though as it happens the species
> was wiped out before this evolutionary possibility ever happened.
> 
> So among UGs that are valid will be UGs that 
> (a) are empirically contingent (and also therefore logically contingent).
> (b) are logically contingent (but not therefore necessarily empirically
> contingent e.g. "E=mc2" might point to a universal law or structural property
> of the universe and thus to an empirical necessity, though it is not a
> statement of any sort of logical necessity).
> (c) reflect an empirical necessity (though not necessarily a logical
> necessity e.g. "E=mc2").
> (d) reflect a logical necessity.
> 
> So to avoid confusion we need to distinguish (at least) between contingent
> UGs and non-contingent UGs, and between logical and empirical forms of
> contingency/necessity. 
> 
> And these distinctions should be borne in mind when we debate whether some
> kind of UG should be viewed as a T-claim.
> 
> Donal
> Only trying to help
> Though maybe spreading confusion
> 
> 
> 
> 
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