much ado about nothing
April 2nd, 2008, search relatedRelated posts :: No related posts
Joe to Ant:
> so you are
> admitting that your argument depends on assuming that attributing
> predicates to nothing is possible
Sorry to but in chaps, but: I’d like to say, on the contrary, that
nothing(ness) is at the heart (of the essence) of predication, and that my
saying that is not merely some kind of dialectical engineering.
Let’s briefly look at difference, different differences. One major kind of
difference that we deal with all the time in philosophy, politics, science
and everyday concerns is what I am calling ‘mathematical difference’.
Mathematical difference doesn’t essentially involve mathematical things like
number, quantity, etc; rather, two things are mathematically different when
the difference is of similar kind to the differentia. For example, the
difference between two atoms, each conceived as configurations of sub-atomic
bits and bobs (electrons, protons, neutrons, etc) can itself be conceived as
so many sub-atomic bits and bobs; the difference between two molecules
(conceived as configurations of atoms, bonds, etc) is just a bunch of atoms,
bonds, etc; the (arithmetic) difference between two numbers/quanta is just
another number/quantum; the difference between two sets is just another set
(containing those members not in both); etc.
Quite different to those (mathematical) kinds of difference are ones in
which the difference between A & B is not of the kind that is A & B. The
most important of these non-mathematical differences is the ontological
difference (between, say, a being and the be-ing of that being). I find this
difference (the difference-qua-difference) reflected in the business of
predication (as I understand it):
Let’s say that predication consists in saying something about something. I
am claiming an essential aspect of this is that there resides a difference
between the saying (of something about something) and the said (what is said
about the something that is said about). This difference, of course, is
nothing (that is said): the saying is swallowed up in what is said, but such
saying (understood verbally rather than nominally) is not the same as the
said (what is said), and in a similar way to that revealed in a sentence
such as ‘it is raining’; here the raining is not the same as the rain (that
is raining), but the rain, as it were, drowns out the raining.
My point is that for predication to be possible, it engages and embraces
(invisibly, inaudibly) a difference that is precisely nothing (saying is
drowned out by the voice of what is said itself, but saying is not the same
as what is said). This difference is not itself sayable but and rather is
the very possibility of saying something (about something), and thus
predication (which is nothing if not saying something (about something)).
So I reverse the concern and conceit of the subject-matter of this thread:
rather than occupy oneself with the possibility of predicating
nothing(ness), instead one might occupy one self with how nothing(ness)
pervades and is essential to predicating (anything about anything, including
saying something about nothing). And this, Joe, is also behind my critiques
of your use of ‘mathematical’ terminologies (sets, classes, taxonomies,
axiomatic logics, etc) to inappropriate domains. You have not yet responded
to (my persistent and explicit) notion that your linguistic/ontological
apparatuses are utterly inappropriate when dealing with be-ing, instead you
continue to create further distracting mathematical forks in the
mathematical roads you travel.
regards
michaelP
