On Choosing a Root Predicate
December 4th, 2007, search relatedRelated posts :: On Choosing a Root Predicate :: On Choosing a Root Predicate :: On Choosing a Root Predicate :: The One True Root Predicate
Axiom 0: On Choosing a Root Predicate
Michael Eldred wrote:
>Joseph Polanik schrieb
>>Michael Eldred wrote:
>>>Joseph Polanik schrieb
>>>>Michael Eldred wrote:
>>>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.
>>JP: true. you got it right the first time; but, now:
>>>Let me now strengthen my claim: The predicate ‘being’ is not just
>>>co-predicated when ‘choosing’ what you call a ‘root predicate’, but,
>>>prior to that, has already been assumed (or pre-predicated) in the
>>>very formulation of your Axiom 0
>>JP: false. Axiom 0 does not tell you what that predicate is.
>ME: You have to assert this, for otherwise your entire approach would
>be in shreds. Unfortunately, “x is” is already a perfectly well-formed
>statement
I have long advocated that ‘it is’ and ‘I am’ are well-formed sentences
because the copula can have an implicit complement. you can find many of
my posts in the archives of this list by searching for the phrase
‘Implicit Complement’.
our dispute is semantic not syntactic. it concerns the *meaning* of
these sentences, not their form.
>predicating “is” of “x”. It is highly appropriate that we have now
>been re-duced, that is, led back to something very simple, namely,
>quarrelling over whether “x is” is a sentence. So, even between two
>native speakers of English, the plainest and simplest of sentences is a
>matter of dispute.
I doubt you will find much support among linguists for this bizarre
theory that is/am is itself a predicate; but, since you *are* free to
advocate bizarre claims, you might want to explain how classifying ‘is’
as a predicate instead of the more traditional copula plus implicit
complement changes the task at hand: articulating the meaning of the
assertion, “I am”.
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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