Heidegger

Cologne 07-Jan-2008

Joseph Polanik schrieb Sun, 06 Jan 2008 16:02:33 -0500:

> Michael Eldred wrote:
>
> >Joseph Polanik schrieb Sat, 05 Jan 2008 12:54:32 -0500:
>
> >>Axiom 0 and its Translation: Agnostic Predication
>
> >>Michael E wrote:
>
> >>>Despite all your protestations in order to save your taxonomy of
> >>>reality types, your starting-point — the so-called Axiom 0 “there is
> >>>a predicate, P, such that, for any x that is, x is P.” — has always
> >>>already predicated ‘is’ absolutely of ‘P’ and of ‘x’. You only coyly
> >>>pretend that Axiom 0 does not predicate anything, i.e. say something
> >>>about something, which is indeed a nonsensical pretence.
>
> >>Axiom 0: (E P)(x)(Px) - there is a predicate, P, such that, for any x
> >>that is, x is P.
>
> >>Michael,
>
> >>apparently, when I translate the symbolic ‘(E P)’ as ‘there is a
> >>predicate, P’, you assume that ‘is’ is predicated *absolutely* of ‘P’.
> >>again, ‘absolutely’ does not allude to an absolute or divine
> >>standpoint from which something is said; but, you are probably right
> >>to suggest (by using an adverb) that it would help to ask about the
> >>’style’ of predication.
>
> >ME: I understand the “absolute” in the OED’s definition of ‘to be’ in
> >its “absolute” signification as the antonym to “relative”, i.e. without
> >any further relation, simply a bald ‘is’ (or some other conjugation of
> >’to be’) as in the existential statement ‘God is’. ‘Is’ has its
> >relative signification as the copula (Roman III in the OED) in which it
> >relates a predicate to the sentence’s subject. (The signification
> >under Roman II. “With adverb or prepositional phrase: stating where or
> >how” relates space or time to the subject. Cf. Kant’s a priori
> >conditions of experience in the forms of intution )
>
> >This understanding of absolute/relative (OED ‘to be’ Roman I and Roman
> >III) agrees also with Kant’s use when he says that the copula (in
> >either a logical or real concept) is “nur das, was das Prädikat
> >beziehungsweise aufs Subjekt setzt” (A599/B627 “only that which posits
> >the predicate by way of relation to the subject”).
>
> Michael,
>
> JP: I see we’re making real progress here; but, there are three problems
> with your absolute/relative schema:
>
> 1. you ignore the syntactic/semantic differential; and, thus commit or
> at least risk the syntactic/semantic transfer illusion.
>
> is this absolute/relative schema a schema for classifying the form of a
> statement (a syntactic analysis); or, a schema for evaluating the
> meaning of a statement (a semantic analysis); or, both?
>
> this is related to the second problem:
>
> 2. you have not yet addressed the question of whether the complement of
> a verb of incomplete predication can be implicit.

ME: Isn’t that a tautology? If the verb predicates incompletely, something
remains unsaid which has to be complemented.

> JP: in other words, does a statement uttered in a form that is
> syntactically
> absolute have a meaning that is semantically relative when the implicit
> complement is uncovered?

ME: The OED speaks with regard to the verb ‘to be’ of an “absolute
signification”, i.e. with regard to its semantics as in e.g. ‘The tree is.’
meaning ‘The tree exists’. For neither sentence is there an “implicit
complement” to be “uncovered”.

>
> JP: 3. the absolute/relative schema for classifying/evaluating statements
> is
> archaic; and, has over the years, picked up undesireable connotations.
>
> absolute/relative schema was current in the early 19th century;
> although, it may have survived long after that time, for all I know.
>
> consider this analysis from 1834:
>
> “Of verbs, some are absolute, others relative. those are absolute which
> in themselves contain a perfect sense, as ‘I sleep’, ‘I wake’. those are
> called relative which require a complement, as ‘I possess’, ‘I see’, ‘I
> regard’; for, to complete the sense, we must add the thing which is
> possessed, seen, or regarded; and though the complement of these verbs
> is sometimes suppressed, it is only because those whom we address can
> easily supply it.
>
> “Often, the same verbs may be employed, sometimes in an absolute, at
> others, in a relative sense. Thus we say, ‘I have watched since
> yesterday morning,’ using the word ‘watch’ in an absolute sense, and
> also,’ I have watched this young man lest he should do some foolish
> thing,’ using the same word in a relative sense.”
>
> [Principles of general grammar, adapted to the capacity of youth by
> Antoine Isaac Silvestre de Sacy. 1834. p101-102. online at
> http://books.google.com/books?id=J6FuRa_…]
>
> notice that he says explicitly that the complement can be implicit.

ME: I see.

> JP: as previously noted, absolute/relative schema for
> classifying/evaluating
> statements has died out. you said you had the 1996 version of the OED on
> compact disc. it uses absolute for the syntactic form that Sacy called
> absolute; but, it doesn’t use relative for the copular use does it?

ME: My version of the OED speaks of the absolute signification of ‘to be’,
i.e. not of a “syntactic form”. The copula, by contrast, is a syntactic term
used in connection with a (semantic) signification in the OED, Roman III,
and, from the viewpoint of syntax, the copula describes a relation, relating
as it does subject and predicate (in the restricted sense).
The semantic signification III in the OED itself, however, is divided into
ten sub-categories, starting with:
“To exist as the subject of some predicate, i.e. to have a place among the
things distinguished by a specified quality or name.”

> JP: the
> OED/SE (5th Ed. 2003) doesn’t even use ‘absolute’ as a name for the
> syntactic form that Sacy called absolute.
>
> try asking yourself why this schema for classifying has died out?
>
> first, of course, there is the tendency in some people to assume that
> the syntactic classification based on the form of the statement at the
> time of utterance unalterably determines the semantic evaluation of its
> meaning — even when it was uttered by a blithering idiot and/or a
> total misinformed (but well-meaning) illiterate.

ME: But the OED does not employ such a “syntactic classification” for the
verb ‘to be’. It provides a list of significations, meanings which happen to
be associated with syntactical peculiarities, which is not surprising, since
the verb ‘to be’ is ubiquitous in English, including as auxiliary verb.

>
> JP: second, as an extension of the first, there is the tendency (among
> those
> in whom gamesmanship is passed off as scholarship) to think that a
> statement spoken in the syntactically absolute form has a meaning that
> is semantically absolute.
>
> there are two forms of this game: third person and first person.
>
> in the third person form illustrates the linguistic sleight of hand that
> is at the foundation of the ontological argument for the existence of
> God. to perpetrate this illusion all we really need to do to create an
> absolute standpoint is to combine statements from two of your posts
> (both from today):
>
> you describe the statement ‘God is’ as “the existential statement ‘God
> is’”.
>
> you describe a new type of predicate you just now found in Kant, the
> existential:

ME:And in the KdrV Kant is arguing AGAINST the possibility of an “ontological
argument for the existence of God.”, so he cannot be accused of perpetrating
an “illusion”. You seem to be misleading yourself with the special example of
the statement ‘God is’, in which ‘is’ has an absolute signification. Absolute
signification, however, does NOT mean or imply ‘God is absolutely.’ ‘God is’
is simply an assertion asserting the existence of God.

To bring this down to earth, take the example
‘Despite the government’s denial, there is a prison camp.’
meaning
‘Despite the government’s denial, a prison camp exists.’
(Unlike German, Latiin and Greek, English usually reformulates ‘x is’ as
‘there is x’, but that does not change the “absolute signification”.)
In this example sentence ‘is’ is used in its absolute signification. There is
no suppressed syntactic or semantic complement. There is no ‘absolute’ or
‘divine’ claim.

>
> >ME: The existential predicate says of a subject that it exists, i.e. that
>
> >it is (and is not merely possible). Kant does not speak of an
> >’existential concept’, but of an “existential statement”
> >(Existenzialsatz A598/B626), which is a synthetic statement. It says
> >that a possible real concept actually exists. In German: daß ein
> >möglicher realer Begriff wirklich existiert. In other words, the
> >possible real concept is posited (gesetzt) as actually existing or the
> >POSSIBLE real concept, together with all its REAL predicates, makes the
> >transition to ACTUALITY (Wirklichkeit), which Kant, somewhat
> >confusingly, occasionally also calls “objektive Realität”, meaning that
> >the object itself is posited in addition to the real concept.
>
> JP: this clearly perpetrates the illusion that stating ‘God is’ in the
> syntactically absolute sense proves that there is a metaphenomenal
> reality associate with the phenomenological reality (personal beliefs
> and experiences) that prompts people to say ‘God is’.

ME: Huh? Kant is arguing AGAINST the possibility of an “ontological argument
for the existence of God.”

> JP: the first person version of the syntactic/semantic transfer illusion is
>
> even more bizarre.
>
> google the phrase ‘ego eimi’ and you will see the output of a veritable
> cottage industry devoted to the analysis of the so-called ‘I am’ sayings
> of Jesus. [Note: I do not advocate for or against the theology; I am
> only commenting on the methodology of the disputants.]
>
> as I understand the logic of this, …
>
> presumably, Yahweh communication to Moses in Exodus 3:14 [tell the
> Isrealites: I AM sent me to you] was written down in hebrew. when it
> was translated into greek it was rendered ‘ani hu’ and from there it is
> rendered into english as ‘I AM’ — with all caps for ultra-emphasis.
>
> meanwhile, time moves on. Jesus walks the earth speaking to the people
> of his time, presumably in aramaic. the theory is that, because Jesus
> also spoke greek, he fine-tuned whatever he said in aramaic so that,
> when rendered in greek the way the gospel writers did in fact render it,
> it would be accurate. thus, in the ‘I am’ sayings, whatever he said in
> aramaic was accurately rendered into greek as ‘ego eimi’.
>
> greek allows the pronoun to be implied so that ‘eimi’ already means ‘I
> am’. when the pronoun is supplied it is considered emphasized in some
> sense. how much emphasis was intended is up for debate; but, one thing
> is crystal clear from the analysis: syntactically absolute statements
> are interpreted to have a semantically relative meaning when an implied
> predicate is uncovered.
>
> most sayings can reasonable be interpreted as having an implied
> predicate; but, scholars analyzing the ‘I am’ sayings eventually get to
> John 8:58 where Jesus is depicted (in the greek) as having said
> something like “Before Abraham was, I AM”.
>
> Stanley J Grenz has this to say:
>
> “The I AM saying that occurs in John 8:58 is unique from all the others
> in that it has no possible implied predicate. Hence, it is the one
> unambiguous occurrence of the ‘ego eimi’ in the absolute sense. For this
> reason, it stands out as the single most defining instance for the
> meaning of Jesus’ appropriation of the divine name. [The Named God and
> the Question of Being. 2005. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox
> Press. p. 192. Most of the book is restricted but some parts, including
> the page quoted are available online at
> http://books.google.com/books?id=VjHTcrW…]
>
> the theory is that, if Jesus was speaking in the semantically absolute
> sense when saying ‘ego eimi’ in the syntactically absolute form; then,
> it signifies that he was identifying himself as Yahweh or that Yahweh
> was co-present saying ‘ani hu’ while Jesus was actually saying something
> in aramaic that was rendered as ‘ego eimi’ in greek.
>
> * * *
>
> now Michael, if religious scholars with a vested interest in verifying
> claims as to the divinity of Jesus understand the syntactic/semantic
> differential; then, don’t you think philosophical inquirers might want
> to follow suit lest we look less open-minded?
>
> would you say that a statement uttered in the syntactically absolute
> form has a semantically relative meaning when there is an implied
> predicate?
>

ME: You seem to be barking up the wrong tree altogether with a so-called
“syntactic/semantic
differential” since it is effective in neither the OED’s “absolute”
signification of ‘to be’ nor in the section of Kant’s KdrV we have been
discussing “IMPOSSIBILITY of an Ontological Proof of God’s Existence”. As I
have laid out above, you seem to be misleading yourself with the special
example of the sentence ‘God is’, which once played its role (even with Kant
himself, the pre-critical Kant) in the so-called Ontological Proof of God’s
Existence.

_-_-_-_-_-_-_- artefact text and translation _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_- made by art _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_ http://www.webcom.com/artefact/ _-_-_-_- artefact at t-online.de _-_
_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_ Dr Michael Eldred (c)_-_-
_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_

Posted on Monday, January 7th, 2008 at 11:35 am
comment | rss 2.0 | trackback