Heidegger

In a message dated 03/01/2007 12:59:21 GMT Standard Time,
artefact at t-online.de writes:

SNIP
Jud {last time]
It simply means that the animal indicated is a member of a group of entities
which physically conforms to a humanly created, and universally accepted
classification subgroup of animals known as frogs {i. e. batrachians - any of
various tailless stout-bodied amphibians with long hind limbs for leaping;
semiaquatic and terrestrial species. It is of course the frogs and the human
classifiers that actually exist - not the classifications, generalisations or
universal that exist.

ME:
So now “A frog is an animal.” This is an example of identifying a particular
(”frog”) with a universal (”animal”). That is, “frog” _is_ what it is _not_,
to wit, “animal”.

Jud:
No. It simply means that the frog in shunted-up one humanly-created usefully
fictional designatory species-slot from Litoria Caerulea — Batrachian –
Animal. It has nothing at all to do with some pot-bellied Greek pedophiliac and
his envisioned emporium of *Universal Forms* cruising the sky like
Heideggerian hang-gliding Tilers awaiting the moment to swoop down and invest some
lucky singularity with his right trouser-leg rolled up and a knife at his left
breast with membership of some universal *Grand Lodge of Simulacrumania.* in
the sky. Universals are just imaginary shoeboxes into which similar things
are sorted and thrown to keep language shipshape and to tidy up the way we
think about the entities that surround us.
Surely you don’t think that these let’s-pretend linguistic encyclopaedic
sorting stacks ACTUALLY EXIST like some postal sorting-room pigeon-holes )
[open-mouthed in amazement smiley]

Dr. Eldred:
In the first statement, “This is a frog.”, “this” is a singularity and
“frog” a universal.

Jud:
BEDONG! Wrong again! *Frog* is the singular form of the noun and the
demonstrative pronoun *this* is in agreement with its singular form.
*FROGS* is the plural form. If the sentence was referring to more than one
frog [in the way that your useful-fiction *EVERYFROG* *universal* refers]
then the form of the pronoun would be THESE and the copula ARE as in: *These
are frogs.*

The indefinite article *a* simple means that *a* single frog is being
indicated which is unspecified. In natural language such a sentence would not
appear utterly out of context in this way anyway, and when the monologue or
dialogue continued the indefinite article would be abandoned and replaced by the
definite article *the.*

Example?

*This is a frog. It is sitting on a lily-pad. The frog is green and has a
tiny golden crown upon its head. The frog is actually a handsome prince over
which the Wicked Wizard of the West Heidegger has cast a national socialist
spell.

Now why do think the indefinite article suddenly changes to a definite one?
Why doesn’t the text keep to the indefinite article and contiue:

*This is a frog. It is sitting on a lily-pad. A frog is green and has a tiny
golden crown upon its head.* Have you worked it out?

Let me know in your next post.

Dr. Eldred: But now “frog” is a particular, specified under the universal,
“animal”. This gives the well-worn syllogism: “This is a frog.” “A frog is an
animal.” Jud: You appear not to have grasped that the eliminativist has no
argument with the employment of useful fictions. All world languages are
literally slewing with them - and a good job too, for they are vital in human
intercourse and talking without them would be a communicational pain in the arse.

The discussion concerns my rejection of the insinuation that these useful
fictional categories or *universals as you insist on calling them ACTUALLY
EXIST. [REMINDER: CAPS FOR EMPHASIS - NOT DISCOURTESY.]

Not one eliminativist on earth would disagree with the statement: “This is a
frog.” “A frog is an animal. Therefore “This is an animal.”

Dr. Eldred: The particular, “frog”, serves as the mediating hinge that
‘closes together’ (con-cludes) the singularity, “this”, with the universal,
“animal”. (This is the sense of the German term, “Schluß”, meaning “conclusion”.)
Once again “this” is identified with what it is not, viz. a universal,
“animal”.

Jud: You are trying to teach your grandmother to suck eggs as we say in the
north. I am more than familiar with the syntactical and semantic mechanisms
of language. I repeat this discussion concerns the ontological status of your
universals - not there communicational efficacy.

Dr. Eldred: So now you have to start again with an eliminativist materialist
account, and explain to us how humans, in times long, long ago before King
Ethelred, created the universal, “animal”, by voting on a universally
acceptable classification in a referendum. It was then, presumably, decreed by the
people that this “sign” was to be placed carefully in the “mental toolbox”
(known to non-eliminativists as language) donated to every newly born English
citizen for later employment in designating all the beings around it. For
instance, on seeing something, every adult, gum-boot-wearing English citizen
searches in his mental toolbox under the universal classification “something”
(set up merely by convention of course in a preceding referendum) for the
appropriate sign to be waved for purposes of designation. Going down the list,
he finds the appropriate sub-classification “something with a bodily
quality”, and then, under the list of the universal, “bodily quality” he finds the
sign “green legs”. This provides the clue that the “something with green legs”
must be a “frog” (what else could it be? A bird?), so the citizen then pulls
out the sign saying “frog” and puts it together with the sign saying
“something”, thus forming the statement, “This something is a frog.” And so on. Of
course, all this searching and classifying and taking of signs from the mental
toolbox called language happens in a split second, the container for this
mental toolbox (called “brain”) being equipped with first-rate,
multi-processor-core, neuronal networks. So we don’t even notice it’s going on. Nevertheless,
it remains unclear when the sign “animal” is to be pulled from the mental
toolbox and when not. How is the average, language-using English citizen to
decide? And how is he to know when the sign “something” is to be appropriately
waved?

Jud:
I like your eminently readable style, but the development of language is not
at all as colourful a process as you depict it. It would be great if it was
such a democratic procedure - sadly it isn’t. Our language and that of your
partner’s are members of the Great Indo-European language family and many if
not most of the words in any of the branches can be traced back to an original
UR language which predated Sanskrit. [you know all this I know and you can
no doubt suck eggs] Humans needed useful words to describe faunae in general
for obvious reasons.

A farmer in one of the hillside pastures on the outskirts of Mohenjo Daro,
or “Mound of the Dead” the ancient Indus Valley Civilisation city that
flourished between 2600 and 1900 BCE would NOT want to shout to his peasants:

*Bring the oxen and the cows and the goats and the water-buffaloes and the
camels and the horses and the sheep and the geese and the hens and the
cockerals and the dogs and the pigs and the cats and the pigeons to the compound
right away - there is a war-party of Harappans been reported approaching the
north-east of the city!.*

He would simply say:

*Bring the animals to the compound right away — there is a war-party of
Harappans been reported approaching the east of the city!.

I trust that the above example will help you in understanding the sort of
scenario when we would use the generalisation *animals* rather than employ a
detailed list and pedantically ensuring that each entity was complete with an
actual nominatum? You can extrapolate the above and create many other fanciful
scenarios where lesser or greater categorial specificity would have been
required for the easier and more rapid communication of information.

The Mohenjo Daroien farmer’s property would no doubt have been overrun by
the marauding Harappans if he had to stand there for half the morning
enumerating each and every bit of livestock which needed to be hurried to protective
custody.

My conclusion? Generalisations were created/developed spontaneously in line
with other aspects of the basic necessities of survival, including suitable
clothing, food, weaponry and warfare, agricultural implements and semantic and
numerical accuracy etc.
They were and remain no more than the usefully fictitious signs created to
avoid paraphrasis, ambage and longwindedness.

regards,

Jud Evans. Personal Website:
_http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/index.htm_  http://evans-experientialism.freewebspac…)

Posted on Wednesday, January 3rd, 2007 at 6:55 pm
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