Non-Clarification of Non-Entities
July 6th, 2008, search relatedRelated posts :: Non-Clarification of Non-Entities :: CPI vs OD :: The Copula is Actually a Predicate. :: Questioning vs Assuming Being
HNA: Non-Clarification of Non-Entities
>>>ME: I said that, by predicating that something is not nothing, you
>>>also predicate that nothing is not something. So even before you get
>>>to define nothing away by shrink-wrapping it down to a minus sign,
>>>you have predicated that it is not something.
>>JP: I don’t know whether you presently work in the field of
>>mathematics; but, you’ve told us that you have two degrees in math and
>>that you’ve written papers in the field. what do mathematicians say
>>about attributing predicates to members of the empty set (even though
>>there are no such members).
>>mathematicians might say that any x that is something is not a member
>>of the empty set. would they then spin around like you do and claim
>>that it follows that a member of the empty set is not a something? in
>>other words, would professional mathematicians attribute a predicate
>>’not something’ (or, whatever) to ‘member of the empty set’?
>>what other predicates do you feel may be attributed to members of the
>>empty set (even though there are no such members)?
>ME: Here you are taking mathematical set theory as a yardstick for
>philosophical questioning, as if this were possible. But it isn’t. Why?
>Because mathematics takes for granted certain entities such as sets and
>members of sets, whereas philosophy aims at an ontological
>clarification of entities as such.
I have no objection of clarification of entities as such — once it is
given that there is an entity.
the point of mentioning the phrase ‘member of the empty set’ is that it
is a phrase that *by definition* has no referent. the empty set has no
members.
so where is the entity to be clarified?
similarly,
if, for any x that is, x is a being; then, ‘nonbeing’ is a word that has
no referent. where is the entity to be clarified?
Joe
–
Philosophy is, after all, done ultimately in the first person for the
first person. — H-N Castaneda
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http://what-am-i.net
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