Heidegger

Cologne 31-Dec-2007

Joseph Polanik schrieb Mon, 31 Dec 2007 03:34:10 -0500:

> Axiom 0: Allegations of Demolition
>
> 2. What is a Predicate?
>
> Michael Eldred wrote:
>
> >Joseph Polanik schrieb Sun, 30 Dec 2007 11:29:54 -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 [under “predicate”]. let’s look at
> >>the complete text of them. … the point is that in *not one* of these
> >>examples is ‘is’ alone considered a predicate.
>
> >ME: If you choose your examples to exclude the “absolute signification”
> >(OED + Webster’s) of ‘to be’ (e.g. ‘It is:’ or ‘The tree is.’) then,
> >surprise, surprise, the examples will not have “‘is’ alone considered
> >as a predicate”.
>
> JP: first you draw our attention to the OED entry for ‘predicate’ by
> quoting
> a *fragment* of an entry. then I quote the full text of two entries
> found under ‘predicate’ and point out that in none of the examples is
> ‘is’ alone treated as a predicate. then you complain that there are no
> examples of the intransitive useage of ‘is’ listed in the OED entry for
> ‘predicate’. then you conclude that this means that ‘is’ alone is a
> predicate.

ME: Of course, by far the overwhelming number of examples of sentences that
come to mind will have more elaborate predicates than saying merely, ‘The
tree is’. But what is at issue is precisely the usage of the verb ‘to be’ as
a predicate, i.e. whether it says anything. And that’s why I adduced the
partial definition in the OED from a long entry covering a couple of pages. I
was not arguing on the basis of examples from the OED, and it is only your
tendentiousness that suggests that I should have been.

I am arguing according to simple formal logic that “‘is’ alone is a
predicate”. What objection do you have? Do you have an objection?

The alternative is to claim
EITHER:
i) The verb ‘to be’ has an “absolute signification”, but simple sentences
that employ ‘to be’ in this signification, such as ‘It is’, or ‘I am’, or
‘The tree is.’ have no predicate. In other words, such simple sentences say
nothing at all.
OR:
ii) The verb ‘to be’ has no “absolute signification”, and both the OED and
Webster’s are at fault to claim so; ‘to be’ has only one kind of
signification, namely, as copula.

> JP: have I understood you correctly.
>
> why not quote us the full text of any example of the intransitive useage
> of ‘is’ listed in the entry for ‘predicate’ in your edition of OED?

ME: The OED calls “intransitive useage” (sic) of the verb ‘to be’ its
“absolute signification”. As far as I can see, it provides no example of this
usage in the entry for “predicate”. Nor, as far as I can see, does it provide
any example of a predicate as “a simple verb” (see full definition below) in
the entry for “predicate”. What do you want to insinuate from that? That
there is no such thing as a predicate as “a simple verb”?

> BTW, exactly which edition of OED do you have, anyway?

ME: The Oxford English Dictionary Second Edition on Compact Disc 1996
and, on paper, The Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary -
Complete Text Reprodued Micrographically 1987.

OED:
“predicate [ad. late and med.L. prædicatum (= ‘quod dicitur de subjecto’,
that which is said of the subject, Boeth.),”
This is from the etymological entry, and concurs with Plato’s and Aristotle’s
analysis of the _logos_, from which Western grammar was originally derived. A
_logos_ is ’saying something about something’, and the simplest _logos_
consists of an _onoma_ and a _rhaema_, i.e. a noun and verb. This is the
simplest ‘putting together’ or _synthesis_ of words that results in a _logos_
saying something (_ti saemainei_).

The much later introduction of the copula, and the subsequent (insidious)
equating of the verb ‘to be’ with its function as copula, has introduced
endless confusion in the Anglo mind (and not just there). The copula then
serves to suppress the absolute signification of the verb ‘to be’ with the
accompanying implication that a simple statement employing ‘to be’ in its
absolute signification SAYS NOTHING. With this suppression, one is rid of the
question concerning being, from which philosophy arose and which has kept
philosophy alive among its great thinkers for millennia.

The copula introduces endless confusion. Cf. the two main significations of
“predicate” n. in OED:

“1. Logic. That which is predicated or said of the subject in a proposition;
the second term of a proposition, which is affirmed or denied of the first
term by means of the copula, as in ‘this man is my father’, ‘Peter is a man’,
‘all men are mortal’, ‘the sun is rising’. (At first used in L. form,
prædicatum.)”

“2. a. Gram. The statement made about a subject, including the logical copula
(which in a verb is expressed by the personal suffix). Sometimes restricted
to the main verb and its object or complement, to the exclusion of any
adjunct. Also in Logic and Math., freq. in wider use: an assertion or
relation having one or more terms unspecified; a propositional function.
The grammatical predicate is either a simple verb, or a verb of incomplete
predication with its complement. The generalization of predicate (G.
prädikat) to include relations (many-place predicates) originated in Hilbert
& Ackermann Grundzüge der theoretischen Logik (1928) 45: see quot. 1950.”

For the first signification, a sentence is composed of subject + copula +
predicate.
For the second signification, a sentence is composed of subject + predicate,
where the predicate, in turn, is composed of copula + ‘predicate in the first
sense’.
There is even a third signification in there of a predicate to the exclusion
“of any adjunct”.
For the sake of clarity, it is better to say that a sentence can consist of
subject + verb + (optionally) the verb’s object, i.e. the predicate (what is
said of the subject) can be a simple verb (such as ‘is’), a verb plus its
object, or even more elaborate with adverbial adjuncts, etc.

Note, however, that, according to the OED, the “grammatical predicate” can be
“a simple verb”. Do you deny that ‘is’ in its “absolute signification” is a
“simple verb”?
Your answer is dictated by your axiomatic approach, which depends crucially
upon ‘Is’ and ‘am’ being understood exclusively as a copula. Therefore your
insistence on a so-called “complement”. Whether your system crumbles, and WHO
you are depend upon the suppression of the “absolute signification” (OED) of
a “simple verb” (OED) as predicate.

As far as I can see, the OED provides not a single example of a predicate
consisting simply of a “simple verb”. Do you want to conclude from that that
there are no examples? And when Plato provides the examply _anthropos
manthanei_ “A man learns”, do you want to then claim that this sentence says
nothing, has no prediate?

“1858 Mason Eng. Gram. §§347­8. 92 Inasmuch as the personal terminations or a
verb have no existence apart from the verb itself, it is usual (and
convenient) in grammar to treat the copula as a part of the predicate. Thus
in the sentence ‘Time flies’, time is called the subject, and flies the
predicate… In using the word predicate, we mean the predicate and copula
combined. In grammar, the terms subject and predicate are used in a more
restricted sense than in Logic.”

In this quotation from the OED under “predicate”, one sees immediately the
ambiguity with which the term “predicate” has been infused under the
influence of the so-called copula. Neither the word, nor the concept ‘copula’
existed for Plato’s and Aristotle’s thinking which gave us the first
philosophical analysis of the _logos_ from which our Western grammar is
derived.

So, whether one admits that the statement, “For all that is, it can be said,
that it is.”, is a valid statement depends upon whether one allows oneself to
be confused by the ambiguity and downright obfuscation introduced by the term
‘copula’ in logic and grammar. Depending upon which way one goes, one can
either make the question concerning being disappear, or one can take it on,
just as the greats in philosophy have done, from Parmenides, Plato and
Aristotle through to Hegel and Heidegger. The latter alternative I find more
interesting. The very survival of philosophy depends upon the question
concerning being not being suppressed.

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Posted on Monday, December 31st, 2007 at 5:15 pm
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