Axiom 0 vs. On admitting “is” as a predicate (something said)
December 3rd, 2007, search relatedRelated posts :: Allegations of Demolition :: Axiom 0 vs. Admitting what is always already said :: Allegations of Demolition :: Is it merely Trivially True?
Cologne 03-Dec-2007
Joseph Polanik schrieb Sun, 02 Dec 2007 21:01:14 -0500:
> Axiom 0: On Choosing a Root Predicate
>
> Michael Eldred wrote:
>
> >Joseph Polanik schrieb
>
> >>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:
>
> >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
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.
>
> >ME: What has to be made explicit in the first place is the meaning of
> >”x is” and “for all x that are” already presupposed by your Axiom 0.
>
> JP: true; but, this has been done already. the logos, as developed in the
> predicate calculus, assumes that one can not attribute predicates to
> nothingness; so, for any x that is, x stands out from nothingness.
> alternatively, in the jargon of set theory, x is not a member of the
> empty set.
ME: So, you say yourself that “predicate calculus, assumes…”, which is
inadmissible for the _prima philosophia_ which ontology is. Therefore your
approach does not have the required depth and remains superficial by taking
on board a whole set of presuppositions. Otherwise with the greats of
philosophy for whom it was the most banal- and trivial-seeming questions that
called for thinking.
>
> >>>… But it is precisely the task of ontology to delve into what “x
> >>>is” means,
>
> no. the task of ontology is to learn what there is.
ME: Then you are doing something else than Aristotle was doing when he
introduces his inquiry by saying that it concerns _to on haei on_, “beings
insofar as they are beings” and soon notes that _pollachoos legetai to on_
“being is said in many ways” in order then to clarify painstakingly these
“many ways”, i.e. to say what being means at all in its manifold meanings.
>
> JP: what I’ve constructed is an axiomatic language within which to report
> the findings of psychophilosophical inquiry without being prejudiced by
> the idiosnycracies of the terminology used by particular philosophers.
ME: Yes, you’ve “constructed” without listening to language, even the English
language, and in particular, without listening to the language of “particular
philosophers” who happen to be the world greats in philosophy. Questions of
translation in philosophy are of major, major importance, and they also help
one develop a sensibility for one’s own English, which is not just a
convenient set of symbols under the control of a subject. All philosophical
thinking is historical, i.e. tied to an historical time-space and an
historical language. Analytical philosophy gets lost in its nit-picking by
overlooking the richness of historical languages and the fact that ALL our
thinking is bound by traditions whose hold over thinking can only be loosened
by returning to those traditions in their original languages and rereading,
rethinking them.
>
> >>>i.e. to elucidate the sense of being rather than surreptitiously
> >>>presupposing it and taking it for granted. “x is” already contains
> >>>the mystery.
>
> >>JP: I agree that ‘x is’, ‘it is’ and, more intensely, ‘I am’ already
> >>contain a mystery: the copula has as an implicit complement that
> >>asserts something of the subject; but, which predicate will make
> >>explicit that which is implicit — without adding more than was
> >>implicit? the mystery does not tell you its own name.
>
> >ME: The so-called “copula” (a term not found in Greek philosophy)
>
> JP: true. the word ‘copula’ was coined by Abelard in the middle ages. how
> does this fact strengthen your position or weaken mine?
ME: Because you use the term ‘copula’ to avoid admitting that this so-called
‘copula’ is already a predicate, i.e. something said. You want to make us
believe nothing is said by “x is”.
> >[ME]: So Axiom 0 itself must be questioned to bring to light what it
> >means that “x is”, the originary _logos_ that says of x that it is. In
> >other words, the predicate P that Axiom 0 postulates as applicable to
> >all x is simply that x is, i.e. the predicate asked for is already
> >assumed, surreptitiously postulated and taken for granted within the
> >axiom itself.
>
> >>JP: nothing you’ve said provides any basis for assigning a privileged
> >>status to ‘being’ as the name of that which is asserted of x when
> >>one says ‘x is’.
>
> >ME: I don’t have to say anything, because you have already postulated
> >it in your Axiom 0, namely. “x is”, in which _logos_ “is” is already
> >what is said, i.e. the predicate. And so I reiterate what you have
> >snipped from my post dated Sun, 25 Nov 2007:
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 because this Axiom 0 already assumes every x that is, or ‘all
that is’. So Axiom 0 itself must be questioned to bring to light what it
means
that “x is”, the originary _logos_ that says of x that it is. In other
words,
the predicate P that Axiom 0 postulates as applicable to all x is simply that
x is, i.e. the predicate asked for is already assumed, surreptitiously
postulated and taken for granted within the axiom itself. So instead of
serving as a self-evident foundation for further derivations, the very sense
of “x is” or “all that is” calls for elucidation, and this can only be
achieved by regressing rather than progressing, going deeper in asking what
it
means for x, or all x, or everything that is, to be.
_chrae to legein te noein t’ eon emmenai_ (Prm. Frg. 6)
“It behoves saying and thinking the being in its being.”
> JP: when is/am is used without an explicit complement (as in ‘x is’), it
> has
> an implicit complement. the copula and its complement (whether explicit
> or implicit) constitute the predicate. the mystery referred to above is
> simply this: in the sentence ‘x is’, what is the implied complement
> which, when made explicit, will result in a true statement of the form,
> ‘x is [explicit complement here]’.
>
> viable answers include ‘a being’, ‘an existent’ and ‘a reality’.
>
> you get to choose which one you want to use as your own personal root
> predicate.
ME: Sounds like supermarket philosophy in which the consumer gets to choose
at whim and arbitrary will. That’s fine for our opinionated, democratic day
and age, but hardly fulfils the demands of ontology which inquires into the
very meaning of _ta onta_.
> >ME: So instead of serving as a self-evident foundation for further
> >derivations, the very sense of “x is” or “all that is” calls for
> >elucidation …
>
> JP: Axiom 0 was constructed to respect the usual relation between an
> axiomatic system and its verbal translation: it is the axiomatic system
> that controls the meaning of the verbal translation; not the other way
> around. the parable of the theory of quantum balto-dynamics contained in
> my post of 2007-11-22 should have clarified this point.
ME: That was the aim of symbolic formalization — to gain control over what
it said, so that the sayer could define even the meaning of his ‘terms’, and
was bound only by formal contradiction. This was a dream of early modern age
philosophy (Descartes, Leibniz, Spinoza, and on to Frege), a kind of sham
rigour inspired by the success of mathematics. Unfortunately, or fortunately,
language is not a set of symbols under the control of the subject, who can
then predicate (or not predicate) at will.
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_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_ Dr Michael Eldred -_-_-
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