Heidegger

Axiom 0: Allegations of Demolition

2. What is a Predicate?

Michael Eldred wrote:

>The relevant part for showing that ‘is’ or ‘am’ can be stand-alone
>predicates is:

>”Note, however, that, according to the OED, the “grammatical predicate”
>can be “a simple verb”. Do you deny that ‘is’ in its “absolute
>signification” is a “simple verb”?”

‘is’ is a ’simple’ verb in the usual grammatical sense; meaning, ‘is’ is
not a verb compounded out of two or more simple verbs; but, this has
nothing special to do with the intransitive use of ‘is/am’ as opposed to
the copular use.

I suspect that your problem is that the OED says:

(Ex)(Px & Sx)

where

‘E’ is the existential quantifier
P = is a stand-alone predicate
S = is a simple verb

translation: there is at least one ‘x’ such that x is both a simple verb
and a stand-alone predicate.

you observe that, where a = ‘learns’, (Pa & Sa) is true. ‘learns’ is a
simple verb and a predicate.

and you want to conclude: (Pb & Sb) where b = ‘is’ or ‘am’

it just doesn’t follow.

the OED may say that a simple verb *can be* a predicate; but, it doesn’t
mean that *every* simple verb *is* a predicate: (x)(Sx -> Px).

Joe

–
Philosophy is, after all, done ultimately in the first person for the
first person. — H-N Castaneda

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Posted on Tuesday, January 1st, 2008 at 11:05 pm
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