Allegations of Demolition
December 30th, 2007, search relatedRelated posts :: Allegations of Demolition -(2)- :: Allegations of Demolition -(3)- :: Allegations of Demolition (2) :: Allegations of Demolition (4)
Axiom 0: Allegations of Demolition
2. What is a Predicate?
Michael Eldred wrote:
>Joseph Polanik schrieb Sat, 29 Dec 2007 10:56:01 -0500:
>>JP: 1. how exactly did you demolish Axiom 0?
>ME: By showing that it already has predicate.
>ME: Read the OED under “predicate”: “2. a. Gram. The statement made
>about a subject, including the logical copula ….”
the OED/SE has two relevant entries. let’s look at the complete text of
them.
===
1. Logic. What is affirmed or denied of the subject of a proposition by
means of the copula (eg. ‘my father’ in ‘this man is my father’).
2[a]. Grammar. The part of a sentence or clause containing what is said
about a subject, including the logical copula (eg. ‘went home’ in ‘John
went home yesterday’), but sometimes excluding any adjunct (’yesterday’
in the example).
[2]b. Math & Logic. An assertion or relation in the absence of any
specified term or terms (eg. ‘is greater than’); a propositional
function.
===
in meaning 1. the predicate ‘this man is my father’ is said to be just
‘this man’ — the copula is *excluded* from the predicate.
in meaning 2a: the copula is *included* in the predicate. a better
example, one that used ‘is’ for better parallelism with the other two
examples, would be to define ‘is my father’ as the predicate in ‘this
man is my father’. this would be more like the meaning of 2b where the
copula ‘is’ is included in the predicate.
the point is that in *not one* of these examples is ‘is’ alone
considered a predicate.
if your claim to have demolished Axiom 0 is based on the allegation that
the OED defines ‘is’ as a predicate; then, you might need to try again.
Joe
–
Philosophy is, after all, done ultimately in the first person for the
first person. — H-N Castaneda
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http://what-am-i.net
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