[lit-ideas] Re: Is 'All men are mortal' unscientific?
- From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 16 Mar 2008 21:39:11 +0000 (GMT)
--- On Sun, 16/3/08, Robert Paul <rpaul@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
> From: Robert Paul <rpaul@xxxxxxxx>
> Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Is 'All men are mortal' unscientific?
> To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Date: Sunday, 16 March, 2008, 8:41 PM
> The other day I wrote
>
> > "I was really worried though about
> Quine's definition. Surely, 'All men are
> mortal' doesn't readily translate into a
> proposition about only one x. One would hope that the
> original version there was a universal
> > quantifier, 'For all x, if x is a man, and so on
> and so on…'"
>
> to which Donal replied
>
> > As I understand it, when Quine starts with
> "(x)", that "x" refers to any
> 'x' not a specific or particular or singular
> 'x'. To say that "(x)" is to say
> "that for any given 'x'", not merely to
> say 'for some special or unique x'. Once
> 'x' is deployed in this way it is clear that when
> speaking of 'x dies at t', Quine is speaking of any
> given x. (And so is Popper)
>
> Donal is confused. True, Quine does use use '(x)'
> to mean 'for all (any)
> x…'
This shows Donal is right rather than confused.
>This does not mean that every instance of the
> variable 'x' in
> Quine's (or anyone else's) writings is a to be read
> as 'for all x.'
But I never said as much: clearly x can be used to refer to any given x or a
particular x; it is the context of the Quine-Popper discussion that I am
arguing, correctly as Robert Paul says, that Quine uses 'x' to mean 'any given
x'. (It is as if Robert Paul read my argument in this context as having some
implicit universal quantifier so it applied to all contexts).
> > His worries are also not germane to the main
> point of Quine's and Popper's discussion.
>
> They are only germane to it if they clear up a confusion in
> the way
> Quine's views are represented. If not, not.
I suggest that Quine's views are clear enough, and easy enough to write out -
there is no upside down A thing on my keyboard, so I'm happen to avoid having
to use it.
> Let me be express my worry simply. 'All men are
> mortal' cannot be
> sensibly rendered as 'there is a time t such that x
> dies at t.' For (1)
> here, 'x' ranges over one individual
No, this is where we part. If 'x' denotes 'any given man' then 'x' ranges over
all individuals of the class men. In that case the claim is sensibly rendered
as quoted. It begs the question to insist 'x' is not being used this way, and
it seems inconsistent of Robert Paul to argue it is not being used this way
when he has already conceded that here this is the way Quine does use it.
Donal
Quoting from "Donal's Dictionary Of Practical Philosophy"
Entry On:- Logical Symbols: Are to philosophy what special effects are to film.
Sometimes bring added realism but sometimes used to patch over threadbare
content.
Entry On:- A Turned Upside Down: Has played a small but vital role in
philosophy as a universal quantifier. Still to appear on the standard keyboard.
Entry On:- Nomonological Dangler: Discovered by the logical explorer Kripke.
Good clean fun.
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