[lit-ideas] Re: Are all logical possibilities a result of some kind of lo...
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 4 May 2009 19:50:47 EDT
In a message dated 5/4/2009 6:41:51 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx writes:
One example of the kind of passages that provoked the question is:-
>What is the case, the fact, is the existence of atomic facts.
>An atomic fact is a combination of objects (entities, things). (2.01)
>It is essential to a thing that
>it can be a constituent part of an atomic fact. (2.011)
>In logic nothing is accidental:
>if a thing can occur in an atomic fact
>the possibility of that atomic fact
>must already be prejudged in the thing. 2.012
>It would, so to speak, appear as an accident,
>when to a thing that could exist alone on its own account,
>subsequently a state of affairs could be made to fit.
>If things can occur in atomic facts,
>this possibility must already lie in them.
>(A logical entity cannot be merely possible.
>Logic treats of every possibility,
>and all possibilities are its facts.)
>Just as we cannot think of spatial objects at
>all apart from space,
>or temporal objects apart from time,
>so we cannot think of any object apart from
>the possibility of its connexion with other things.
>If I can think of an object in the context of an atomic fact,
>I cannot think of it apart from the possibility of this context. (2.0121)
>The thing is independent,
>in so far as it can occur in all possible circumstances,
>but this form of independence is a form of connexion with the atomic
fact,
>a form of dependence.
>(It is impossible for words to occur in two different ways,
>alone and in the proposition.) (2.0122)
>If I know an object, then I also know
>all the possibilities of its occurrence in atomic facts.
>(Every such possibility must lie in the nature of the object.) (2.0123)
McEvoy:
>Wittgenstein does not use the term "contingent" here
>and the term is _not_ indexed in my Pears & McGuinness version.
>For all I know the term is not used in TLP.
>This is unfortunate:
>for while the _necessary_ will always also be _possible_,
>so these are not necessarily opposed, there is
>a prima facie opposition
>between what is the case _necessitously_
>and what is the case only _contingently_.
Yes, perhaps Wittgenstein's use of 'accidental' could be examined, too. I
noticed a certain negligee, if that's the word, in his use of "Substanz".
For Aristotle, 'ousia', or 'prote usia', 'prima substantia', applies
_primarily_ as it were to _individuals_. My aunt is a substance. It's more
difficult to argue, as Wittgenstein seems to be doing, that _all_ the 'objects'
(gegenstand) that 'make up' (bilden) the world _are_ (is?) the 'substance' of
the
world. It's not impossible, but it's a less natural use of 'substance'.
Note also that 'sub-', that Wittgenstein uses, is extraneous, prima facie, to
Aristotle, who speaks only of 'ousia', the (feminine abstract) 'being'.
'stantia' _or_ 'essentia' would be the proper Latinate transliterations. The
'sub' in 'sub-stantia' is translating 'hypousia', i.e. hypo, sub- + ousia.
It is I think this sort of 'metaphysical' claim, that there is an underlying
_thing_ to things that Hume (and other philosophers who affirm there is
'substance abuse' in philosophers (although perhaps not Aristotle)) was
objecting to.
Now, 'accident', since Wittgenstein seems to use it in its adjectival form
("nothing in logic is accidental") seems also some sort of loose
Aristotelianism. As I recall things, for Aristotle, 'accidens' is a _serious_
issue,
and is usually opposed to
_proprium_
and 'essentia' (proper).
The _proprium_ is the _property_ that a (first) substance displays which is
_not_ essential, and yet _not_ accidental. (That a man has eyes, for
example; perhaps even that a man has seeing-eyes, for blindness is a
privation).
Yet it is not part of the _essentia_ (hyle-morphe) of the _prima_ substance
herself. Thus, if Oedipus, as he does, separates his body from his eyes,
he is still a man. What he cannot separate from hisself is being _rational_.
(But as my mother says, "if Oedipus was rational, I am the quean of
Sheeba").
McEvoy:
>Both 'actual facts' and 'possible facts'/possibilities
>may be the case, on the face of it, either by
>necessity or only contingently.
>Yet the TLP asserts:-
--- and incidentally, :), unlike Root's philosophical lexicon has it, it's
'logico-philosophicus', rather than 'logicus philosophicus', I would think.
It's different in German. The thing _should_ have been written in Latin.
It should be illegal to call a book with a Latin name and not write it in
the same language in which the title is printed. Russell had done so,
Principia Mathematica, and Moore followed suit, "Principia Ethica". Mind that I
_am_ a person who judges a book by its cover.
>"In logic nothing is accidental:
>if a thing *can* occur in an atomic fact the possibility
>of that atomic fact *must* already be prejudged in the thing." (2.012)
Exactly. Note that I would have, in more correct grammar, 'may' rather than
'can': "if a thing _may_ occur in an atomic fact...". "can" I restrict to
things I can't an old dog: "teach new tricks".
McEvoy:
>Is "accidental", which is ruled out by a "must" -
>a seeming _logical_ "must", some kind of synonym
>for "contingent"?
Well, see above for Aristotle on this. I have not analysed the 'accident'
in Aristotle. Apparently it's the sumbebekos. But again, it's slightly
confusing to apply Aristotelian terminology, meant to apply to things he was
familiar with ("Socrates", etc.), to more, er, abstract things like the
subject of logic herself!
>Is the TLP claiming that in logic nothing is contingent?
Exactly. Good question. But it isn't, is it? Grice heard Austin once said,
and this would be circa 1946, or perhaps 1957 (when Quine was visiting).
"They say logic is a game, so let's play it". They spent, Mrs. Grice
recollects, the next two terms doodling crosses and dots on bits of paper. By
'the
rules of the game' of logic, we can say that there is nothing contingent in
logic. Another fashionable term then is 'analytic': "It is analytic that
once we play the game of logic, my mother is either a human being or she
isn't".
It was up to Quine (due to developments in linguistics -- Bloomfield
analysing the natives) to register that there could be _deviant_ logics. I'm
surprised Wittgenstein was _so_ into 'necessity' of logic when Heisenberg and
Eddington were already in 1929 pointing to things like the principle of
indeterminacy that challenges basic things like 'principle of
non-contradiction' (vide, please, if you so wish, L. Horn, "Contradiction" in
Stanford Enc.
of Logic!).
>And is it claiming this is so with any logical "possibility"?
Well, 'moeglichkeit'? I have a problem with the noun there. For Aristotle,
it is 'dunaton', the possible. I'm not sure if this applies to a
_proposition_, to a _state of affairs_, or what. I would think Witters thinks
that
"Es is regnet und es is nicht regnet"
is _not_ a logical possibility. Why? Logical form: "p & ~p". It does not
depict a possible state of affairs. But I would think that 'logical
impossibilities' are also the result of 'logical necessity' (some kind thereof).
For in a logic with truth-value gaps, for example (to stick to Strawson),
things like
"The Paris standard meter is a meter long"
_challenges_ the 'principle of non-contradiction'. "That's one thing that
we can't say that it is neither true nor not true", I think Wittgenstein
expressed it. Ditto for
"The king of France is not bald"
--- Grice objected. Surely that's not truth-value gappy, but plain _false_.
M. Dummett has explored logics that challenge the 'principle of
non-contradiction' in his many 'intuitionistic' writings. Indeed, he would claim
that if we go by intuitions, we cannot _say_ much. His example, as I recall is,
"Elizabeth I was bald"
-- "under the circumstances", I think he says, "that's even more of a
conflicting thing to say taht the King of France wore a wig".
McEvoy:
>The TLP asserts:-
>"If things *can* occur in atomic facts,
>this *possibility* _must_ already lie in them.
>(A logical entity cannot be merely possible. Logic t
>reats of every possibility, and all possibilities are its facts.)"
>What does it mean to say
>"A logical entity *cannot* be merely possible"?
>Is this "merely possible" another synonym for "contingent"?
Yup. It would seem so. It's unfortunate the wealthy Weiner had not come up
with the term 'contingaent' in his education. I'm sure he would have played
with it, otherwise. Cfr. "Speranza is a contingency. Andreas Ramos can
kill him anytime".
McEvoy:
>This is the kind of consideration that underpins
>my - perhaps misconceived - question.
Don't say that. There's no such thing as a 'perhaps inconceived' foetus, I
mean, question. Inconceivable mabbe.
>It is linked specifically to the TLP because the
>denial of logical contingency
>(or of the existence of any contingent "logical entity")
>is not, I guess, the standard view of most
>(depending, crucially, by what we mean by "logical entity").
Well, but that's back to 'who _is_ people?' There are hundreds of 'most'
(logicians) who find Russellian logic (even 'cum Gricean pragmatics) that
they are more than willing to multiply 'senses' of 'contingency', 'necessity',
'truth-value', and play and play and play more and more 'pornographic' (to
echo R. Paul's description of Whitehead/Russell, "PM") games.
(Austin's version was "Symbolo", Grice recalls, "a less marketable version
of Whoff'n'Poof", he adds).
McEvoy:
>Wittgenstein's view of necessity versus contingency is not,
>as far as I can see, made explicit in TLP but rather
>belongs to that (largish) class of issues where the TLP's position
>is to be inferred (or perhaps where the TLP's position is _shown_ by
>what is said).
Well, yes, and this connects with your insight -- in one post I forget
under what heading -- of the effects on this on ethics. When, to help you, and
help me because I like discussion and debate, I worked with the OED on
'contingent' there was this excellent quote (I think) which I now reproduce:
"If human actions are not Contingent, what think you of the morality of
actions?"
Bishop Watson, Apology of the Bible, 1796, x. 368
-- the principle of libertarianism, as it were. Cfr. the dispute between
the Cambridge platonists and the Arminians:
1847 HAMILTON Reid's Wks. 977/1
"Others admitted absolute necessity -- no contingency, no liberty."
1882-3 SCHAFF Encycl. Rel. Knowl. III. 2306
"The liberty of indifference or of contingence which had been charged upon
the Arminians."
1653 T. WHITFIELD Treat. Sinf. Men ix. 39
"He determines that some things shal come to passe necessarily, other
things freely and contingently."
1678 CUDWORTH Intell. Syst. 3
"They suppose that Necessity is inwardly essential to all Agents
whatsoever, and that Contingent Liberty is pragma auuprostaton , a Thing
Impossible
or Contradictious."
McEvoy:
>A possible answer to the question might be that the TLP assumes that
there are only two >kinds of "logical entity" - the contradiction, which is per
force false, and the tautology, which >is perforce true. Therefore there
are no contingently true or false logical entities.
>But does this adequately account for all the text?
---- Well, I think one vacuum here is things like "All bachelors are
unmarried". I think it was Carnap who first noted this -- he is associated with
Witters and the Vienna Circle. So it wouldn't be just propositional
tautologies that can be 'true' by 'analytical virtue' as Ayer will have it in a
view I'm more familiar with (his Gollancz book). But anything that we _define_
ex stipulatione can fall within this class, too: "Giraffes are animals",
etc.
It may do to analyse the _necessity_ and contingency of
_predicate-calculus_ formula. Usually, the 'all ravens are black' is meant as a
conditional;
but it's not of the form (x)Fx --> Fx, but of the form,
(x) Rx ---> Bx
-- and Root has 'raven' in his dictionary. As the Argentine philosopher
Thomas Moro Simpson argued in his one and only book, if we see a white raven,
we may still call it raven, because the chromosomal structure is that of a
raven, an albino raven, maybe. So, "all ravens are black" would be
_analytic-in-Language L1_ where there is a meaning postulate that, as axioms
postulate the meaning of 'or', postulate the meaning of 'raven'. A white raven
would thus be a logical if not an actual possibility.
---
McEvoy:
>And does it imply that in logic nothing is contingent?
>And does this imply that from a logical point of view there is
>no such thing as contingent possibility?
Well, there is a scholastic, perhaps Catholic unwanted smell to
'contingent' that I'm more than willing to annoy. On the other hand, Geary is a
Catholic (vide his vol. IX -- ad contingentiam mundi).
McEvoy:
>And is this to say that if insofar as 'p' represents a contingent
possibility then
>what 'p' represents has nothing to do with logic?
Well, I think R. Paul hit in in the head (of the nail) when he recalled
Malcolm's snooty reply by Witters, "I'm a logician, not an engineer". I would
think there _is_ a sense in which what "p" stands for is _irrelevant_ for
logic. But this has to do more, I find it practical to think, with the idea
behind a _valid_ argument.
p
p --> q
-------
q
The validity of an argument depends on _not_ contingent facts about
conditionality of associated tautologies, etc. Oddly, the Latinate philosophers
who introduced the coinage, 'contingent' did notice, clumsily, that while
'possible' allows for a natural immediate negation, "impossible",
"incontingent" is more of a mouthful of a near-otiosity.
McEvoy:
>Near its end the TLP asserts (for argues is too strong a term, surely):-
>"The logical propositions describe the
>scaffolding of the world, or rather they present it.
My, that's an image.
>They “treat” of nothing. They presuppose that names
>have meaning,
???
Cfr. Dodgson -- citing Mill:
Humpty Dumpty: And what does your name mean, "Alice"?
Alice: Must a name mean something?
>and that elementary propositions have sense.
So perhaps R. Paul is very right in wishing Witters would have expanded on
'sinn'.
>And this is their connexion with the world. It is
>clear that it [anaphoric. JLS] must show something
>about the world that certain combinations of symbols —
>which essentially have a definite character—are tautologies.
Incidentally, we should be reminded that 'tautology' means originally
something like 'repetitious', i.e otiose. "deja vu all over again" as it were --
cfr. this weeks NYT review of books, "Nobody doesn't like Yogi Berra".
Sadly, the same cannot be said of Wittgenstein, although those who hate him
possibly did love him.
>Herein lies the decisive point. We said that in
>the symbols which we use something is arbitrary,
>something not. In logic only this expresses:
---
'arbitrary' is another nice work to analyse. I never understood it until I
read PhD dissertation by D. K. Lewis for Harvard. He notes that a
'convention' (and Witters's reference to 'symbols' makes him a bit of a
conventionalist) _has_ to be 'arbitrary'. If it's not arbitrary it's not a
convention
(to use an angle to fish a pike, for example, cannot be a convention,
because it's not arbitrary; but to set the fork on the left side of the plate
_is_ conventional. You could just as well have it _on_ the plate, say. To
excrete is _not_ conventional, but to speak French _is_. Etc.
>but this means that in logic it is not we who express,
>by means of signs, what we want, but in logic the
>nature of the essentially necessary signs itself asserts.
Well, this use of 'essentially necessary' (as opposed to ...?) must connect
with his use of 'accidental'. This shows he _was_ an engineer. A serious
student of philosophy is already _so_ tired of this vocabulary that would
not use it freely like Witters does.
>That is to say, if we know the logical syntax
>of any sign language, then all the propositions
>of logic are already given. (6.124)
By my grandmother. This is a bit of a dangerous generalisation. Oddly it
may have inspired Carnap in that uglily titled book, "The logical syntax of
the world". Cfr. the flowing, American beauty of a philosophy title, "The
structure of appearance"!
>It is possible, also with the old conception of logic,
>to give at the outset a description of all “true” logical propositions."
Oh my god. Personally, I work not with 'true' but with '0' and '1'. I
prefer 'factual satisfactoriness' to 'truth' (vide Grice, WOW, iii). If what he
means is that a _decidable_ system must provide for an algorithm for which
propositions are theorems and which are not, I agree, though. But
predicate-calculus is _not_ definable algorithmically. We need an
_interpretation_
and only artificially can we say that an interpretation is 'given at the
outset'. Systems can be notably _uninterpreted_ until we do.
>Perhaps someone (else) can clear all this up very easily?
Scaffold. That must be the key.
Cheers,
J. L. Speranza
Buenos Aires, Argentina, etc.
**************Remember Mom this Mother's Day! Find a florist near you now.
(http://yellowpages.aol.com/search?query=florist&ncid=emlcntusyelp00000006)
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