From: Brian Holtz [brian@holtz.org] Sent: Friday, February 08, 2002 1:45 PM To: alt.atheism.moderated Subject: Re: Are irrational numbers supernatural? "Paul Holbach" wrote > If you intend to ascribe a property P to an object O, which is the > alleged bearer of the name X, and to make the corresponding statement > "O (represented by X) is P" a true one, you first need to know whether > there is a real O named X, for if there is no O, there cannot be any > O-properties. I favor an opposing view called Bundle Theory: a thing is nothing more than the bundle of its essential properties. It has no underlying substance or essence or form or soul, and its identity consists in it being its own closest close-enough continuous-enough continuer. > in order for any predication to be possibly > true, its (grammatical) subject must be an (ontological) object whose > existence has been established before this act of predication and > independently of it Rather than existence of some essence having to have been established, I would instead say that the object's identifying properties merely need to be recognized or defined. > Otherwise X is a hollow name referring to nothing! No, X refers to a bundle of properties. For an explanation of how predication is to be understood as non-tautologous in Bundle Theory, see http://www.soci.niu.edu/~phildept/Kapitan/bundletheory.html. > For instance, "The present king of Germany is a drunkard." is > neither true nor false, as there is no object to which the description > "the present king of Germany" would refer. "The present king of Germany is a drunkard" can be recognized as false when analyzed in the light of Bertrand Russell's theory of of definite descriptions. From section 2.1.1. (Mathematics / Logic / Formal Logic) of my book: A proposition can contain what appears to be a term but that refers to no existing thing, such as "the present king of France". Such a phrase is not a term but a definite description. A definite description is an expression that appears to simply refer to some thing but instead actually makes a claim that the uniquely described thing exists. For more details see (available in Google's cache): http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~jmacf/phil135/descriptions.html > if O is unknowable, you cannot know that there is an O at all, > that is you are unable to verify the existential claim, and so there > can be no true statement "X is unknowable". If O (named "X") is a bundle of defined properties, then it can indeed be possible to consider whether those properties are consistent with whatever you might mean by "unknowable". If by contrast the properties of O are not defined or given, then "X" does not name anything, and you might as well say " is unknowable". > The statement S: "X is P" can only be true/false, > if (and only if) an O is known to be the bearer of X. Yes -- and O is nothing more than a bundle of properties which may or may not (necessarily or contingently) include P. > a pseudo-statement like "X stands for a known object O > that is unknowable." is nonsensical! If you stipulate that "known" is among the properties of O, then saying O is "unknowable" is simply false. > > There are many things we know that we cannot know. I know that > > I cannot know that P is true, where P is "Brian Holtz does not > > know this statement is true". I know that I cannot have > > certain knowledge of arbitrary synthetic propositions. I know > > that I cannot know the precise momentum and position of any > > object. I know that I cannot know about any event whose light > > cone I am not in. I know that I cannot know both a proposition > > and its negation. > > Of course, there is true propositional knowledge about the > limits of knowledge. Which seems to contradict your previous statement: We simply cannot know what we cannot know, so we cannot even SAY what we cannot know, as Wittgenstein would put it! > > Wittgenstein is by far the most over-rated philosopher, even > > more than Nietzsche, [..] > > The wisdom of Wittgenstein and Nietzsche can´t be overrated > ... perhaps misapprehended... Being unconventional and quotable is not the same thing as being wise. > > In my experience, attribution to Wittgenstein correlates highly > > with nonsensicality and irrelevance. > > Well, that´s no point in your experience´s favour... ;-) This from the guy who just added to my experience by quoting to me the Wittgensteinian nonsense-or-banal-truism that "we cannot know what we cannot know." ;-) -- brian@holtz.org http://humanknowledge.net