[lit-ideas] Re: Colorless Green Ideas Don't Sleep Furiously
- From: "Walter C. Okshevsky" <wokshevs@xxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 3 Jul 2009 15:26:43 -0230
Quoting Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx:
>
> Geary:
>
> >Everything we see is, somehow, coloured -- we like it or not. Be glad
> it's _blue_.
>
>
>
> Now, oddly, Chomsky said, "Colourless green ideas sleep furiously". Which,
> in Geary's view, would come out as _false_. Since everything _is_ coloured.
If by "Chomsky said" we mean "Chomsky averred" or "Chomsky asserted" or "Chomsky
made the truth claim that ..." then I suspect we are mistaken. If memory serves,
it is more correct to say that Chomsky "referred to" that statement, or "made
mention of" that statement. These latter formulations serve to state that
Chomsky did not himself endorse the statement as true, intelligible, just, or
whatever. Geary would surely support Chomsky here in maintaining that
"Colourless ...." is not the kind of linguistic utterance that CAN be true or
false since it is senseless. Or: it is senseless precisely because we have no
idea of its truth conditions. Or Geary may accept both reasons for the claim,
although it is a risky business attributing epistemic claims to him since he
wishes to either deny all of them or accept all of them.
Having just returned from a nice seminar with my undergrad Ed. students, devoted
to the question: "If you have learned that P, do you know that P?"
Alas, some students will tell their lovers that "Walter had us discuss whether
the earth is flat, or was flat 300 years ago, or whether believing something to
be true actually made it true and whether whales are reptiles and is George
Kostanza really a moral moron."
Walter O
MUN
>
> But Hume and R. Paul accept _abstract ideas_, e.g. 'idea'. Can an idea be
> _green_? No. That's why, why 'Colourless green ideas sleep furiously' is
> false, the subject header, i.e. that they don't, is true. An idea is not
> green. Never mind colourless.
>
> Cheers,
>
> JL Speranza
> Buenos Aires, Argentina
>
> **************A Good Credit Score is 700 or Above. See yours in just 2 easy
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