Heidegger

Cologne 02-Jun-2008

Joseph Polanik schrieb Sun, 01 Jun 2008 09:48:12 -0400:

> Michael Eldred wrote:
>
> >Joseph Polanik schrieb
>
> >>Michael Eldred wrote:
>
> >>>Joseph Polanik schrieb
>
> >>>>consider two statements concerning the nature of predication:
>
> >>>>A: predication is saying something about something
>
> >>>>B: predication is saying something about something that is not
> >>>>nothing.
>
> >>>>I’ve previously expressed my view that [A] should be understood to
> >>>>mean exactly what [B] appears to mean. you’ve claimed that [B]
> >>>>is untenable; but, you never really gave an example of a statement
> >>>>of predication that met [A] as you interpret it without meeting [B]
> >>>>as I interpret it. would you do that, now?
>
> >>>ME: If something is not nothing, then, so too, nothing is not
> >>>something, which is saying something about nothing. So your premiss B
> >>>fails.
>
> >>JP: I agree that asserting ‘nothing is not something’ counts as saying
> >>something about nothing; but, you haven’t proven that B has failed.
> >>you’ve only proven that there is a *difference* between your
> >>understanding of A and my understanding of B (which is also my
> >>understanding of A).
>
> >ME: They’re your A and B, not mine. All I pointed out was that you
> >can’t help predicating something of nothing,
>
> JP: on the contrary, one *can* prevent predicating something of nothing
> simply by defining ‘is’ and ‘Nothing’ thru use:
>
> where
>
> N = ‘Nothing’
> E = existential quantifier
> = biconditional (ie equivalence)

ME: If you define nothing away, then you define nothing away.

>
> JP:
> [1]: (x)(-N)
>
> translation: for any x that is, x is not Nothing
>
> this is logically equivalent to
>
> [2]: -(Ex)(Nx)
>
> translation: it is not the case that there is an x such that x is
> Nothing. thus:
>
> [3] (x)(-N) -(Ex)(Nx)
>
> hence, one can not attribute predicates to nothing because the word
> ‘nothing’ has no referent to which any predicate may be attributed.

ME: Introducing a logical formaltzation here is merely pseudo-rigour replete
with sham “thus” and “hence” to intimidate those who allow themselves to be
intimidated by pseudo-rigour. Nothing is the negation of any “x that is”. All
you show is that formal logic (i.e. your logical positivist thinking) cannot
cope with the thought of nothing. To convert negation into a mere minus sign
“-” is sheer thoughtlessness that evades the problem of nothing, negation,
not, which is one of the most difficult in philosophy. Shrink-wrapping the
phenomena down to formally manipulable symbols makes them vanish rather than
doing what needs to be done, namely, to unfold the phenomena into an adequate
conceptual language.

> >viz. that nothing is not something.
>
> >>JP: could you say something similar in the language of sets: if
> >>something is not a member of the empty set; then, so too, a member
> >>of the empty set is not something? are you allowed to say that even
> >>though there are no members of the empty set about which you could say
> >>that?
>
> >ME: The empty set is something. And nothing is not the empty set.
>
> JP: the empty set is a real set; but, it has no members. similarly,
> ‘nothing’ is a real word; but, it has no referent.
>
> one can not attribute any predicate to nothing because the word
> ‘nothing’ has no referent to which any predicate may be attributed.

ME: You have merely formalized “referent” as “x that is”, but nothing is the
negation of any “x that is”. We’ve been here before: nothing is not
something, and that is what you cannot avoid predicating of nothing.

_-_-_-_-_-_-_- artefact text and translation _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
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_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_ Dr Michael Eldred (c)_-_-
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Posted on Sunday, June 8th, 2008 at 6:07 am
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