As well as getting thinnerer in their attempt to Griceify Popper, JLS' post now
lapses into incoherence:->Yet, how many 'usages' of 'falsify' are there?
One.
"Do not multiply senses of 'falsify' beyond necessity." There is one basic core
sense that allows for multiple usages.>
It is incoherent that there is "One" usage of falsify and also "multiple
usages". No doubt this charge can be evaded by shifting feet on what we mean by
'usage' in each case - but why the double-usage of "usage" if we mean something
different in both cases?
What is 'shifting feet'? Shifting feet is one of JLS' traits when the ground
beneath him gets weak to the point of collapsing. Sometimes it's like a little
dance with jazz hands.
DL
On Friday, 15 April 2016, 12:57, "dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx"
<dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
In today's NYT, Nikita Stewart must have been reading Popper. The note reads:
"Group home workers are charged with falsifying records."
The initial paragraph reads:
"One current and two former employees of a nonprofit that ran group homes in
Brooklyn were arraigned on Wednesday on charges of falsifying records." Now, it
may be granted that Stewart is writing English, and Popper was speaking
Austrian. So it may do to explore what the Austrian for 'falsify' is. It is
very tempting to understand Popper yielding to a temptation. Everybody (almost:
Ayer, Schlick, etc.) were using (or misusing) 'verify'. So he came up, when
translating or co-translating his stuff, with 'falsify'. Yet, how many 'usages'
of 'falsify' are there?
One.
"Do not multiply senses of 'falsify' beyond necessity." There is one basic core
sense that allows for multiple usages. Ditto with 'verify', which was the wrong
choice of verb anyway?
Who verifies what? The influence must have been Tarski. British empiricists
seldom use 'true', 'alethic', or related terms. But for Tarski (and later
Donaldson) it's all about _truth_-conditional semantics. To verify 'snow is
white', you are taken to Alaska, and unless Palin refudiates you by showing
some burnt snow that is black, you'll conclude that 'snow is white' has been
verified by looking at the Alaskan landscape -- or Russian one, since one can
see Russia from Alaska, Palin testifies. Cheers, Speranza