[lit-ideas] While the cat sat on the mat, Wittgenstein ...

In a message dated 4/27/2009 5:00:29 P.M.  Eastern Daylight Time, 
mr.eric.yost@xxxxxxxxx writes:
A "process"  metaphysician -- a'la Alan Watts or 
Father Teilhard -- might choose to see  all nouns 
as verbs. In the sense that the earth "peoples" or 
apple trees  "apple."  Cats are really "catting" 
... i.e., the universe producing a  cat form. Even 
mats might be an indirect expression of natural  
forces.

The catting sat on the matting.

Similarly in "It's  raining." Es regnet. What is 
doing the raining? What is that "it"? There is  
rain, not as noun but as verb.

-----

Perfect.
When I did my  PhD in Buenos Aires I used "the cat is on the mat" a lot, 
but I tell you in  Spanish it does not rhyme. "Cat Sat On The Mat" is even 
more perfect.
The  example I took from what's his name Toulmin, originally, compleat with 
 drawing.

-----

Now the verbing of nouns is indeed a natural move  -- while still in the 
realm of symbolism. Famously, Quine said Pegasus pegasises  (in "On What There 
Is"): he used American spelling and used 'pegasizes'. In any  case, just to 
tease logicians. For logicians before Quine:

Pegasus flies  -- would be Aa.

I.e., still an _atom_, involving a constant of an  individual ('a') and a 
predicate ('flies'). Quine wanted to say that individuals  are the old 
pre-Humean substance and thus to be avoided "like the plague"  (commis 
plaguibus). 
In his symbolism, it's two predicates  then:

x pegasizes
x  flies

In Conception of Value, by Grice, I took inspiration for a casual  remark 
he makes. "If you ask what tigers are here for, in this earth, I'd say,  they 
tigerize. Whatever their final _metier_ is, that's what 'tigerise'  is".

So indeed, catting and matting.

------

I think  Wittgenstein and Russell misuse 'atom' in _atomism_. They want to 
say that Aa,  say, is an atom. Also perhaps ~Aa. (i.e the negation, "The cat 
did not sat on  the mat"). 

One philosopher, R. M. Martin, called his cat, actually,  "Pegasus", just 
to tease Quine who would say that 'Pegasus' is a _vacuous_ name.  

It's only with "Aa & Bb" that we get the first _molecule_ for  Wittgenstein 
and Russell.

When we 'conjoin', or disjoin (The cat sat on  the mat or didn't, you know) 
or conditionalise ('if the cat sat on the mat,  clean it').

"If the cat is on the mat, clean it" became the butt of jokes  for 
philosophers like P. M. S. Hacker (who almost succeeded Grice at St. John's,  
Oxford).

For, if it is an atom that Aa, then it's also another atom,  "Clean it", 
but with a different direction of fit. Now in what way is that a  conditional 
order? 

Wittgenstein denied atoms with imperative force,  wisely, in his universe 
of discourse. Perhaps he would have understood them as  "I desire that you 
clean the mat", which _is_ a fact.  

JLS
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