Axiom 0 vs. Admitting what is always already said
December 4th, 2007, search relatedRelated posts :: Allegations of Demolition :: Allegations of Demolition :: Axiom 0 vs. Admitting what is always already said :: Yes, I Have No Holerons
Cologne 04-Dec-2007
Joseph Polanik schrieb Mon, 03 Dec 2007 22:55:53 -0500:
> Axiom 0: On Choosing a Root Predicate
>
> >>>>Michael Eldred wrote:
>
> >>>Axiom 0, formulated in the so-called “predicate calculus” (on which
> >>>I wrote a thesis in pure mathematics a long time ago), asserts that
> >>>there is a predicate predicable/sayable of all x.
>
> >>JP: true. you got it right the first time; but, now:
>
> >>>ME: Let me now strengthen my claim: The predicate ‘being’ is not just
> >>>co-predicated when ‘choosing’ what you call a ‘root predicate’, but,
> >>>prior to that, has already been assumed (or pre-predicated) in the
> >>>very formulation of your Axiom 0
>
> >>JP: false. Axiom 0 does not tell you what that predicate is.
>
> >ME: You have to assert this, for otherwise your entire approach would
> >be in shreds. Unfortunately, “x is” is already a perfectly well-formed
> >statement
>
> JP: I have long advocated that ‘it is’ and ‘I am’ are well-formed sentences
>
> because the copula can have an implicit complement. you can find many of
> my posts in the archives of this list by searching for the phrase
> ‘Implicit Complement’.
>
> our dispute is semantic not syntactic. it concerns the *meaning* of
> these sentences, not their form.
ME: Yes, it is a semantic dispute concerning whether the simplest of English
sentences, “It is” and “I am” make sense by themselves without invoking some
implied complement or other. To make our difference on this crucial point
plain, let us counterpose your so-called
Axiom 0: For all that is there is something to be said, namely a predicate P,
which can be said uniformly each x that is.
with the simple observation:
For all that is, something can be said, namely, that it is.
(which then leads back immediately to the question: What does it mean to say
“It is”?)
>
> >ME: predicating “is” of “x”. It is highly appropriate that we have now
> >been re-duced, that is, led back to something very simple, namely,
> >quarrelling over whether “x is” is a sentence. So, even between two
> >native speakers of English, the plainest and simplest of sentences is a
> >matter of dispute.
>
> JP: I doubt you will find much support among linguists for this bizarre
> theory that is/am is itself a predicate; but, since you *are* free to
> advocate bizarre claims, you might want to explain how classifying ‘is’
> as a predicate instead of the more traditional copula plus implicit
> complement changes the task at hand: articulating the meaning of the
> assertion, “I am”.
ME: That’s good news that my view is labelled “bizarre”, for this indicates I
am on the right track which necessarily contrary to mainstream opinion among
linguists, for linguists are not, and cannot be philosophers because their
job is not to ask the very first questions. Philosophy only ever happens when
what is self-evident is put into question, and this can NEVER happen by
calling ESTABLISHED knowledge as the main witness to bolster one’s argument
and give one courage and self-assurance.
That said, you only have to open an elementary book on grammar to find that
the simplest of sentences, consisting of a subject about which a predicate is
said, may indeed very well consist of a subject (noun, pronoun, etc.) and a
verb (e.g. “a man learns”). This is also in line with what Plato and
Aristotle say are the simplest of sentences: an _onoma_ plus a _rhaema_, i.e.
a name plus a verb. In particular, this means that “It is”, consisting of the
pronoun “it” along with the appropriate, 3rd person singular case of the verb
“to be”, is a perfectly good example within itself of the simplest of
sentences. Which is just what you deny, invoking your linguist supporters.
So either you are claiming that even the simplest of sentences absolutely
MUST have a so-called “copula” followed by a so-called predicate-name (noun,
pronoun, adjective, etc.), e.g. “This is red”, OR you are claiming that “is”
is not a verb (presumably because it is a so-called copula). Either claim is
untenable.
And by the way, it is not at all surprising that linguists overlook the
simplest of sentences, “It is”, for it took great thinkers such as Plato and
Aristotle to unfold the question of being in the first place, and later on it
took great thinkers such as Hegel and Heidegger to recover this question from
oblivion after it had been covered up literally for millennia. A linguist AS
linguist has not the faintest inkling about how to make the simplest and
seemingly most trivial of statements, “It is”, into an abyssal question.
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