In a message dated 4/27/2009 5:00:29 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, mr.eric.yost@xxxxxxxxx writes: A "process" metaphysician -- a'la Alan Watts or Father Teilhard -- might choose to see all nouns as verbs. In the sense that the earth "peoples" or apple trees "apple." Cats are really "catting" ... i.e., the universe producing a cat form. Even mats might be an indirect expression of natural forces. The catting sat on the matting. Similarly in "It's raining." Es regnet. What is doing the raining? What is that "it"? There is rain, not as noun but as verb. ----- Perfect. When I did my PhD in Buenos Aires I used "the cat is on the mat" a lot, but I tell you in Spanish it does not rhyme. "Cat Sat On The Mat" is even more perfect. The example I took from what's his name Toulmin, originally, compleat with drawing. ----- Now the verbing of nouns is indeed a natural move -- while still in the realm of symbolism. Famously, Quine said Pegasus pegasises (in "On What There Is"): he used American spelling and used 'pegasizes'. In any case, just to tease logicians. For logicians before Quine: Pegasus flies -- would be Aa. I.e., still an _atom_, involving a constant of an individual ('a') and a predicate ('flies'). Quine wanted to say that individuals are the old pre-Humean substance and thus to be avoided "like the plague" (commis plaguibus). In his symbolism, it's two predicates then: x pegasizes x flies In Conception of Value, by Grice, I took inspiration for a casual remark he makes. "If you ask what tigers are here for, in this earth, I'd say, they tigerize. Whatever their final _metier_ is, that's what 'tigerise' is". So indeed, catting and matting. ------ I think Wittgenstein and Russell misuse 'atom' in _atomism_. They want to say that Aa, say, is an atom. Also perhaps ~Aa. (i.e the negation, "The cat did not sat on the mat"). One philosopher, R. M. Martin, called his cat, actually, "Pegasus", just to tease Quine who would say that 'Pegasus' is a _vacuous_ name. It's only with "Aa & Bb" that we get the first _molecule_ for Wittgenstein and Russell. When we 'conjoin', or disjoin (The cat sat on the mat or didn't, you know) or conditionalise ('if the cat sat on the mat, clean it'). "If the cat is on the mat, clean it" became the butt of jokes for philosophers like P. M. S. Hacker (who almost succeeded Grice at St. John's, Oxford). For, if it is an atom that Aa, then it's also another atom, "Clean it", but with a different direction of fit. Now in what way is that a conditional order? Wittgenstein denied atoms with imperative force, wisely, in his universe of discourse. Perhaps he would have understood them as "I desire that you clean the mat", which _is_ a fact. JLS **************Access 350+ FREE radio stations anytime from anywhere on the web. Get the Radio Toolbar! (http://toolbar.aol.com/aolradio/download.html?ncid=emlcntusdown00000003) ------------------------------------------------------------------ To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off, digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html