[lit-ideas] Re: Elementary Propositon, Atomic Proposition
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 17 Apr 2004 15:46:14 EDT
"I believe that our problems can be traced down to the atomic propositions."
L. WITTGENSTEIN Let. (to Russell), 1912, in Notebks. 1914-16 (1961), p. 120.
Thanks to Geary for his reflections.
In a message dated 4/17/2004 12:20:26 PM Eastern Standard Time,
atlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx writes:
Thanks to JL for his contribution. 'Atomic' would have to be updated to
'Quark', I suppose -- or perhaps to 'String', ...
Well, yes.
Actually, the late professor of moral philosophy at Oxford, Richard Mervyn
Hare, wrote an essay on 'sub-atomic particles of logic'. (I think T. Wharton
was
using that in a pragmatics conference).
The idea, for Hare, is that if you say,
Close the door, Harry.
There is an _atom_ ("Close the door, Harry"), but which can be analysed into:
- phrastic (what is said)
- neustic (the force of what is said: the "!")
- clistic (the falling intonation)
- tropic (the mode indicator).
I raised my doubt as to the identity "atomic" with "elementary" though, in
that some logicians would say that
"Tom hit the ball"
is an _atomic_ proposition, while
"Tom hit the ball and the ball hit Jerry"
is _molecular_ -- conjoined as they are by 'and'.
Ditto for 'or'.
It is usually understood that 'if' also turns a proposition into a molecular
one, but I'm not sure.
To read from yesterday's New York Times -- an article on churchyards --:
"If there is no more room (in the churchyard), there's no more room in
the churchyard"
Or
"If Tom hit the ball, the ball hit Jerry".
-- It can be held that 'if' introduces a _sub-ordinated_ proposition (a
protasis and an apodosis) and thus it differs from 'and' and 'or'.
Similarly, it has been held that "~" ('not') cannot really turn an atomic
proposition into a molecular one.
A: You did!
B: Not!
"Not" ("Did not") would not really _molecular_ in the sense that "Tom hit the
ball and the ball hit Jerry" or "Tom hit the ball or the ball hit Jerry" are
molecular.
If you think of it, Wittgenstein possibly thought that only 'and' forms
_molecular_ propositions. On closer inspection, there's little molecularness
about
"Either she did it or she did not" (or "The train is going to New York or to
Chicago").
On the other hand, when philosophers speak of Russell's philosophy (and
Wittgenstein's early philosophy) as being 'logical atomism', I think they mean
'elementary' proposition, but 'logical elementarism' is less of a catchy label,
right?
Cheers,
JL
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