Axiom and Translation
December 25th, 2007, search relatedRelated posts :: Yes, I Have No Holerons :: Axiom 0 and its Translation (1) :: The Relationship between Axiom and Translation :: Is Dasein a Reality?
Cologne 25-Dec-2007
Joseph Polanik schrieb Mon, 24 Dec 2007 09:23:59 -0500:
> >>JP: we’ve previously established that any attempt to use the
> >>linguistic history of the word used as the root predicate to help
> >>determine what the root predicate means implies a reversal of the
> >>usual relation between an axiomatic system and its translation into
> >>human language.
>
> from your post of 23-Nov-2007:
>
> >>>>[JP]: it is true that, in english (and, for all I know, many other
> >>>>languages), the copula is a form of the verb to be. however, that
> >>>>is a linguistic quirk. if your argument against the CPI is based
> >>>>on such a linguistic quirk; then, it would be invalid if expressed
> >>>>in a language whose copula derives from some word other than their
> >>>>equivalent of the verb to be. surely you are not relying on an
> >>>>argument as culture-bound as that.
>
> >>>ME: You seem to think that the content is independent of language. It
> >>>is not. You have to try to say what you have to say in a particular
> >>>language, listening all the while to what that language says to you.
> >>>Note also that English ‘being’ has an Indo-European root ‘*bhu’, so
> >>>equivalents can be found in all Indo-European languages. But the
> >>>important point is that your very thinking is linguistically and
> >>>historically situated and bound (see below).
>
> >>JP: this last, claim together with the extensive etymological
> information
> >>you have presented in previous posts, suggests that you have forgotten
> >>something significant concerning the relationship between an axiomatic
> >>system and its verbal translation (or interpretation or model): it is
> >>the axiomatic system that controls the meaning of the verbal
> >>translation.
>
> >>you seem to want it the other way around.
>
> >ME: Yes, I do …
>
> >>JP: consequently, the linguistic history of the word used as the root
> >>predicate is irrelevant … *unless* you can explain why we are
> >>compelled to reverse the usual relation between an axiom and its
> >>translation. if the reversal is just for this case; then, why is this
> >>not merely a self-serving, ad hoc claim? if this reversal is supposed
> >>to be universal; then, you would have to explain to physicists that
> >>quarks actually reflect certain wavelengths of light but only if you
> >>name the three quark ‘flavors’ after the three primary colors. how
> >>would you do that?
ME: If, like a physicist, one is dealing with “certain wavelengths of light”,
i.e. with certain quantities, then it doesn’t matter one bit how these
quantitative variables in certain equations are named. And that is because
quantity itself is the abstraction from all qualities. In philosophy,
however, such categories as quality and quantity themselves become questions,
and cannot be conveniently taken for granted, like the physicist or the
mathematician can do. Cf. Hegel’s Logik.
> JP: this is the question that you don’t seem willing to focus on: is this
> reversal ad hoc and self-serving; or, is it universal; and, in either
> case, what is your justification for reversing the relation between an
> axiom and translation?
ME: The axiom has to be immediately, i.e. unmediatedly self-evident through
intuition, i.e. by merely looking at it (intution = Anschauung = looking-at).
E.g. Euclid’s first axiom: “Given two points, there is an interval that joins
them.” But if it posits something questionable like your Axiom 0, which
already predicates”it is” for “all that is”, then it is not self-evident, but
leads to the question concerning the meaning of “it is”. In other words,
philosophy does not have the luxury of taking anything at all for granted,
like geometry and mathematical science have (although it also could be
claimed that both only progress by questioning their foundations).
A similiar objection can be raised against the very first axiom in Spinoza’s
Ethics, viz.:
“Omnia, quae sunt, vel in se, vel in alio sunt.”
“All that is, is either in itself or in another.”
NB that “is/sunt” are used here in the absolute signification of the verb ‘to
be’, i.e. they are predicates in themselves.
_-_-_-_-_-_-_- artefact text and translation _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_- made by art _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_ http://www.webcom.com/artefact/ _-_-_-_- artefact at t-online.de _-_
_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_ Dr Michael Eldred -_-_-
_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
