Heidegger

Axiom 0: On Choosing a Root Predicate

Michael Eldred wrote:

>Joseph Polanik schrieb

>>Axiom 0 states only that there is a root predicate.

>ME: Or “root” predicates. Axiom = does not exclude a plurality.

true. as is traditional in logic, ‘there is a’ means ‘there is at least
one’.

you seem now to be admitting: Axiom 0 implies that there is a root
predicate; but, does not specify which predicate(s) is/are root
predicates or candidates for selection as a root predicate; and,
consequently, one must *choose* a root predicate.

I have said this all along. see, for example, my web page on alternate
root predicates:  http://what-am-i.net/lor_alt_root_predic…

>ME: You seem to think that one can “choose”, and perhaps even “choose”
>to exclude “being” as a possible choice. But this is not so.

here you seem to be suggesting that one can not choose a root predicate;
or, that, if it is conceeded that one can choose a root predicate, one
must choose ‘being’.

I disagree on all counts.

one can choose a root predicate. indeed, one *must* choose a root
predicate if one wishes to use as a root predicate some predicate other
than the universal predicate implicit within predicate logic: is not a
member of the empty set.

have you created an axiom that requires everyone else to choose ‘being’
as a root predicate?

>>it is only in choosing a root predicate that I become able to define
>>myself as a being or a reality or an existent (or whatever).

>ME: Why should I argue at all on the basis of an asserted Axiom 0? For
>phenomenological questioning, it’s the phenomena themselves that lead
>the way. As I point out above, ‘being’ does not have to be “the one and
>only root predicate”.

here you seem to be acknowledging that one can choose a word other than
‘being’ for use as a root predicate; but, …

>ME: You say, “I know that I am” and “[I] claim that I do not know this
>[i.e. I am a being] until after I have chosen a root predicate.”

what you have in the [sqaure brackets] assumes that I will choose
‘being’ as a root predicate; and, that assumption is contrary to the
fact which I’ve mentioned frequently that I choose ‘reality’ as a root
predicate.

>So you admit (also according to your Axiom 0) that a so-called “root
>predicate” can be chosen. Any predicate is that which is said about a
>subject, and you are proceeding in a logical manner that implicitly
>relies on Plato’s analysis of the _logos_ as ’saying something about
>something’ or ‘predicating something as something’. (Otherwise there
>would be no so-called ‘predicate calculus’ today).

true: a predicate is that which is said about a subject. Axiom 0 merely
makes explicit what is implicitly assumed by predicate logic: no
predicate may be assigned when there is no subject to which it can be
assigned.

in the jargon of set theory: no predicate may be assigned to a member of
the empty set (because the empty set has no members).

in pre-modern jargon: nothingness has no attributes, properties or
qualities.

thus, if any predicate whatsoever can be attributed to a given subject;
then, the universal predicate, ‘is not a member of the empty set’ may
also be attributed — to any x that is.

>”Even saying affirmatively “I” implicates being.

not unless we’ve previously assumed that ‘being’ has been chosen as a
root predicate.

>Axiom 0, formulated in the so-called “predicate calculus” (on
>which I wrote a thesis in pure mathematics a long time ago), asserts
>that there is a predicate predicable/sayable of all x. No matter what
>this proposed predicate is (an existent, an entity, a reality, an
>actuality, a potentiality, you name it), “I am a being” is
>CO-predicated since an existent, an entity, a reality, an actuality, a
>potentiality, etc. is ALSO a being in a certain mode of being.

here you seem to be suggesting that one is obligated to use as a root
predicate every predicate ever used as a root predicate by anyone.

Axiom 0 only requires us to have one. it does not prohibit having more
than one root predicate; but; it does not require us to do so; and,
hence, you *may* do what you wish to do in the previously quoted
passage.

but, it is not *necessarily* the case that someone who chooses, say,
‘real’ or ‘existent’ as a root predicate will *also* choose to use
‘being’ as a root predicate.

>No matter which so-called “root predicate” you “choose”, the predicate
>”being” is always ALSO chosen. Try it out.

very well,

1: I assume Axiom 0.

2: I construct a substitution instance of Axiom 0 by choosing ‘real’ as
a substitute for the placeholder, P, in Axiom 0.

3: this substitution instance Axiom 0 is taken as Axiom 1 of the logic
of the language of reality; and, ‘reality’ becomes the root of a
taxonomy of all that is (when that taxonomy is presented within the
language of the real).

4: I assume Axiom 2 which (as stated within the logic of the language of
reality) is: not every reality has the same reality type.

5: I take inventory of the reality types that are attributable within
the language of reality. as mentioned these on previous occasions, they
are:

existential or physical reality (anything made of matter/energy and
spacetime).

phenomenological reality (subject or object of any experience)

ontological reality (ie being; or, more generally, anything that has a
reality independent of our experience of it (ie a metaphenomenal
reality); but, which is not an existential reality).

6: since your claim is that someone who chooses ‘real’ as the root
predicate *necessarily* co-predicates ‘being’ of any reality, I present
a reality that refutes your claim: an atom of osmium.

there is no proof that an atom of osmium is a being or has any being as
defined above (eg a soul in the cartesian sense). philosophers might
dispute this point; but, no one has ever proven or even presented a
shred of evidence that it is *necessarily* true that an atom of osmium
is other than a mere existential reality.

Joe

–
Philosophy is, after all, done ultimately in the first person for the
first person. — H-N Castaneda

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Posted on Friday, November 23rd, 2007 at 6:55 pm
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