Allegations of Demolition (4)
January 2nd, 2008, search relatedRelated posts :: Allegations of Demolition -(2)- :: Allegations of Demolition -(3)- :: Allegations of Demolition (2) :: Allegations of Demolition
Cologne 02-Jan-2008
Joseph Polanik schrieb Tue, 01 Jan 2008 13:47:14 -0500:
> Axiom 0: Allegations of Demolition
>
> 3. What is a Complete Sentence?
ME: I.e. GRAMMATICALLY.
>
> Michael Eldred wrote:
>
> >You seem not only to deny that ‘to be’ has an “absolute signification”
>
> JP: I have long advocated that ‘is/am’ has an intransitive useage.
ME: But you do not understand, or pretend not to understand, what you are
saying by “intransitive useage”. And I wonder why you keep on misspelling
‘usage’. Perhaps the extra ‘e’ is the alleged implied complement?
> >ME: With such obstinacy you put your intellectual credibility at risk.
> The
> >alternative is to put your axiomatic system at risk by admitting that
> >’It is’ is a complete sentence in itself (without any implied
> >complement).
>
> JP: could it be that some small part of our dispute concerns the
> definition
> of ‘complete sentence’? let us consider some sample sentences.
>
> 1. ‘the dog ate the’. this sentence is incomplete.
>
> 2. ‘I am an experiencer’. this sentence has an explicit complement and
> is complete.
>
> 3. ‘I am’. this statement lacks an explicit complement. is it complete
> or incomplete? does it have an implicit complement or not?
>
> you seem to be saying that [3] has no implicit complement; but, is
> nevertheless complete (according to some definition of ‘complete’).
ME: You are being coy. ‘I am’, ‘It is’, ‘x is’, ‘God is’ (see below) have no
implicit complement for the absolute signification of the verb ‘to be’.
>
> JP: I am saying that [3] has an implicit complement; and, is therefore
> complete (according to some definition of ‘complete’).
>
> it seems to me that there are two not entirely unrelated issues here:
>
> 1: what does ‘complete’ mean when said of a sentence?
>
> 2: does ‘I am’ have an implicit complement?
>
> ===
>
> 1. what does ‘complete’ mean when said of a sentence?
>
> the Wiktionary defines a sentence as:
>
> “A grammatically complete series of words consisting of a subject and
> predicate, even if one or the other is implied, and typically beginning
> with a capital letter and ending with a full stop.”
> http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sentence]
>
ME: NB This is a GRAMMATICAL definition.
> JP: it is necessary to consider implicit elements when evaluating the
> completness of a sentence. if it were otherwise, virtually all examples
> of the imperative mode of speech would be incomplete; for example, ‘go
> away’ would be incomplete because it lacks an explicit subject.
>
> interestingly enough, when the Wiktionary goes to define an incomplete
> sentence, it says:
>
> “A sentence can be very long but still be an incomplete sentence if it
> lacks an element necessary to complete a thought. By contrast, a very
> short sentence can be a complete sentence if the missing elements are
> provided by context: Are you going to the beach today? I am.”
> http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/incomplete…]
>
> note the example given. the clear implication is that ‘I am’ is would be
> incomplete *but for* the inclusion of implicit elements.
>
> thus, there is a total contradiction between your claim that ‘it is’ and
> ‘I am’ are complete sentences and any claim that these sentences do not
> have an implicit complement.
>
> 2: does ‘I am’ have an implicit complement?
>
> this question, which has come up before, is very simple: are you saying
> that, when there is no explicit complement to the copular verb, ‘is/am’
> there is no implicit complement either?
ME: You continue to play sophistical hide-and-seek among the copulae. The
English verb ‘to be’ is the copula in only ONE among several sgnifications.
As we have clarified at tedious length, the “absolute signification”
(intransitive usage) of ‘to be’ is distinct from its copular signification.
And, in the meantime, you have also admitted that both your Axiom 0 (”there
is a predicate, P, such that, for any x that is, x is P.”) and your
so-called CPI (’I know that I am; but, not what I am’) contain ‘is/am’ in
their intransitive usage, i.e. NOT exclusively in their copular usage.
But earlier (Sat, 01 Dec 2007), you claimed that both your Axiom 0 and your
so-called CPI employ ‘is’/'am’ only in their copular signification. This is
downright self-contradictory.
> JP: if that’s what you are saying; then, I disagree. as you have said
> recently, the task at hand is to make explicit that which is implicit.
> so let me explicate:
ME: As I have demonstrated, you disagree with yourself.
> JP: when I say ‘I am’ I assert that I am. I am not saying anything
> specific
> about what I am, so the intransitive use (no explicit complement) serves
> me just fine. but we know that, merely by asserting that I am, I am
> implicitly asserting that I am not a member of the empty set or that I
> am not nothing or that I stand out from nothingness. one can say it in a
> number of ways; but, the message is the same: there is an *implicit*
> assertion beyond the explicit statement that I am. when this implicit
> assertion is made explicit the implicit copula complement is made
> explicit; hence, there is always an implicit copula complement.
ME: This is utter nonsense. Making a logical explication starting from a
certain statement has nothing whatsoever to do with the grammatical term
‘complement as such’. The verb ‘to be’ in its absolute signification (as
distinct from its copular signification or analytical-empiricist
philosophy’s allegedly ‘unsignifying’ equals sign) does not require any
grammatical complement whatsoever.
===
Here are some further examples from the OED for the “absolute signification”
of the verb ‘to be’:
1810 Scott Lady of L. iii. i, How are they blotted from the things that be.
1827 Carlyle Misc. (1857) I. 61 God is, nay alone is.
1837 Fr. Rev. I. i. 6 So much that was not is beginning to be.
(with ‘there’, still under the heading of the “absolute signification”):
1562 J. Heywood Prov. & Epigr. (1867) 86 Thers no redempcion.
1650 Baxter Saints R. i. i. (1662) 3 Theres few will deny, that God knows.
1711 Pope Rape Lock 79 Some nymphs there are, too conscious of their face.
Mod. There are photographs and photographs.
===
The simplest of simple sentences e.g., “God is”, is complete within itself,
i.e. it has no implicit grammatical complement. If one goes on to explicate
who “God is”, this is a logical progression in the sense of reasoning in
words (_logoi_) about “God”, i.e. theo-logy. The statement, “God is”,
predicates being of God, and has no grammatical complement whatsoever –
explicit or implied. Similarly, starting from the simple observation that
‘For all that is, it can be said/predicated, that it is’, one can progress
using reasoned words (_logoi_) to explicate a discourse on _ta onta_, i.e.
an onto-logy, which has been philosophy’s heartland an its source for over
two and a half millennia.
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.
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_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_ Dr Michael Eldred (c)_-_-
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