[lit-ideas] Re: Is 'All men are mortal' unscientific?
- From: wokshevs@xxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 16 Mar 2008 16:26:02 -0230
How's this for a possible mediated resolution to the dispute? "All men are
mortal" is indeed not a scientific claim given the sense of "scientific" and
the sense of "mortal" being used by Donal. The sense of these terms are
legitimate within the specific problematic Quine and Popper are addressing, and
the questions involved are genuinely philosophical questions.
But it remains the case that we are justified in believing that all men are
mortal in a more comprehensive sense of "mortal" and that all scientists (and
all other rational persons) either believe this too or at least act as if they
too believed the truth of this claim.
I want to thank Donal and Phil for some very interesting posts on this thread.
There is much thought and energy invested in them, no doubt. Let's try and
remember that insofar as we're engaged in philosophy, we're all pulling in the
same direction.
Walter O.
MUN
Quoting Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>:
> Re: Is 'All men are mortal'
> unscientific?Saturday, 15 March, 2008 4:09 AM
> From: "Phil Enns" <phil.enns@xxxxxxxxxxx> Add sender to ContactsTo:
> lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
> (My comments marked **)
>
>
> Donal McEvoy wrote:
>
> "I feel Phil is simply missing or obfuscating the underlying
> philosophical/logical point which concerns ..."
>
> Ah, that oh so mysterious 'philosophical point'.
>
> ** It's not so mysterious. It's been stated a number of times and is
> reiterated below.
>
> There is the
> ordinary meaning of the sentence 'All men are mortal' and then there
> is that special way of speaking/reading the sentence so that it has,
> as well, a 'philosophical meaning'.
>
> ** The primary ordinary meaning of "All men are mortal" is that all men
> will die eventually, and certainly that none shall live forever. Pace Phil,
> it is not that "All men are subject to normal human frailty (but, we may
> suppose, live forever anyway?)". So neither Popper nor Quine are guilty of
> giving the expression some odd or "special" 'philosophical meaning' - if
> anyone is, it is Phil.
>
> ** Second, whatever secondary meanings 'mortal' might have, both Quine
> and Popper are explicit that they are using it in the sense where immortality
> connotes never dying and mortality connotes that (at some point) there will
> be death.
>
> ** Third, the whole point of using the example "All men are mortal" is
> to raise a claim which would seem borne out by much observational evidence
> but which in fact is not testable by observation, because the only
> observation that could falsify it is of someone who, once born, lived forever
> - but that is not an observation that could ever be made empirically.
>
> ** So talk of human frailty etc., and other alleged meanings of 'being
> mortal', is entirely beside the point. And Phil's suggestion that the logical
> point at stake depends on some specialised stipulation is groundless: both as
> a matter of ordinary language and of logic.
>
> ** I have suggested Phil's response is point-missing but he seems
> insistent. What would Phil make of someone who, when discussing the so-called
> 'private language argument', pointed out that even public buildings often
> have rooms that are marked 'private', and therefore there can (given this is
> readily intelligible in ordinary language) be no proper distinction between
> private and public except by way of some weird or "special" stipulated
> philosophical usage; or argued that a primary meaning of 'private' is 'of
> concern to oneself and not anyone else's business' and so the 'private
> language argument'must be an argument that language is never of concern to
> oneself and is always everyone's business, but that this is not true. And so
> on..Would Phil be impressed at their acumen?
>
>
> Perhaps one breathes heavier or
> speaks more reverently? It seems to me that either the ordinary
> meaning of the sentence 'All men are mortal' is important for any
> philosophical points one wants to make regarding that sentence, or
> one's philosophical point has nothing to do with the sentence.
>
> ** See above: they are using the, or an, ordinary meaning; the meaning
> is explicit; and is also clear when one bears in mind _the problem_ they are
> addressing:- heavy breathing and reverential speech don't come into it,
> whatever Phil might suggest to the contrary.
>
>
> My initial comment regarded a quote provided by Donal, given here:
>
> "Quine also discusses 'All men are mortal', but he takes 'x is mortal'
> to mean 'there is a time t such that x dies at t'."
>
> This quote may be in the context of a discussion of what counts as
> scientific and what doesn't, surely a pointless discussion in and of
> itself since there is nothing that makes a statement scientific,
>
> ** Pointless? Pointless, for example, to understand what distinguishes
> a scientific claim from one that is not scientific? Really? Where has Phil
> been while this has been a central problem for philosophers - polishing up
> some verbal irrelevancies somewhere? The Popperian answer is that there is
> _something_ "that makes a statement scientific" and that is _the method
> or methods by which it is defended_. That is, a statement doesn't decide
> whether it is scientific or not, or in itself come ready-made as scientific
> or not - it is in how we treat the statement that we show whether we are
> treating it as a scientific claim or not. But Popper goes much further than
> this and provides an analysis of what it is, methodologically, to treat a
> statement in a scientific way. Belittling all this as "pointless" may make
> Phil feel big and clever, but it achieves little of substance.
>
>
> but
> it is wrong, in several ways, to claim that the sentence 'All men are
> mortal' means 'there is a time t such that x dies at t'.
>
> ** Let's look at these " several ways" then.
>
> First, it is sloppy in that the word 'mortal' has a meaning beyond
> simply dying.
> But that is quibbling.
>
> ** Yes that is quibbling; but no, there is nothing "sloppy" in using a
> word in one of its senses - especially its _primary sense_. (Does Phil
> suggest, as we might infer, that to avoid being "sloppy" we should always use
> a word in all of its senses at the same time? - now that, I suggest, would
> produce a sloppy mess).
>
> Second, the reduction of the meaning of the
> sentence to being about a point in time strikes me as mistaken.
>
> ** I understand Phil's concern about this, but will show it is again
> beside the point or point-missing. The point Quine and Popper are discussing
> does _not_ depend on there being a precise time of death (to the nano-second
> or beyond, say): that is why in paraphrasing the argument I spoke in terms of
> there being a time ('t2') when X was dead when there was time previous ('t1')
> when X was alive. This leaves open what time-gap, if any, there is
> between t1 and t2; and avoids dispute as to what state X is in during such a
> time-gap (dead or alive?). These disputes are irrelevant to the point at
> issue:- all that matters is that _at some point in time_ X is dead when _at
> some previous point_ X was alive: that is enough to show that X died at some
> point in time.
>
> ** I believe Quine and Popper know this well enough but don't think
> anyone who understands the point at stake is going to kick up a fuss when
> they speak of there being a time t when X dies: for time t need not be a
> precise time - time t could be between 10 and 12 on Tuesday, for example.
> Phil's kicking up a fuss by assuming that time t is precise is therefore
> misconceived on two counts: there is no ground to assume that time t must be
> an absolutely precise time (especially as this claim is completely irrelevant
> to the argument), and it is beside the point at stake.
>
> ** To repeat the point at stake:- it is that "All men are mortal" could
> only be falsified by the existence of a man who lived at every future time;
> but this could never be observed; and so - despite appearances - "All men are
> mortal" is not something that can be directly tested by observation and so is
> not per se a scientific claim.
>
>
> Mortality is not about a point in time but rather being subject to
> death.
>
> ** This is answered, I hope, above. But we should be clear - death
> occurs at some point in time. This is unaffected by the fact that the living
> are also, in a sense, "subject to death". If Phil thinks otherwise, as might
> be inferred from the apparent distinction he draws above, he is mistaken -
> bearing in mind that 'between 10 and 12 on Tuesday' may be described as a
> "point in time"; and that the term "point in time" does not commit us
> to any view as to the smallest point in time that time might be measured
> and/or how this might apply here. (Indeed, Phil's much-vaunted 'ordinary
> language' is surely with me on this).
>
>
> Hence my comments about a mortal being being one who would die
> if ... and here one gives a list of events that would normally lead to
> death.
>
> ** But even such causes would not make the time of death precise: so
> invoking causes of death here is just - dare I say it - "sloppy", given the
> issue.
>
>
> Finally, reducing mortality to time leads to the absurd notion
> that we somehow carry around our time of death as a function of being
> mortal.
>
> ** Carry it around how? Like a pocket-watch? This "absurd notion" is
> all in Phil's head and nowhere implicit in what Popper or Quine say or want
> to say. Nor are they guilty of "reducing mortality to time" - a truly absurd
> notion. To say a car crash happened at certain point in time does not reduce
> the car crash to time i.e. does not assert that the car crash is merely an
> aspect of time. It's not - it's a car crash.
>
>
> I couldn't care less about an argument over what does or does not
> count as a scientific statement, but I am happy to clear up confusions
> surrounding what the sentence 'All men are mortal' means.
>
> ** As indicated above, Phil has many confusions of his own to clear up
> and is wrong in the confusions he detects in others.
>
> ** What also comes through is a breathtakingly arrogant dismissal of
> 'science' and of the philosophical issues it raises (something all too
> prevalent on this list). My guess is that Phil's reputation in this field is
> nowhere near that of either Quine or Popper, and that this will not be
> reversed by his bad mishandling of their arguments and/or attributing to them
> absurd views.
>
>
> Faithfully,
> Donal
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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