Saying Something about Something that is not Nothing
January 10th, 2008, search relatedRelated posts :: No related posts
Cologne 10-Jan-2008
Joseph Polanik schrieb Thu, 10 Jan 2008 06:31:53 -0500:
> Sophistry’s tautologies: Saying Something about Something that is not
> Nothing
>
> Michael Eldred wrote Wed, 09 Jan 2008 14:11:04 +0100:
>
> >In your posting to Michael Pennamacoor yesterday (Tue, 08 Jan 2008) you
> [JP]
> >wrote:
>
> >>”I have expressed the same thought in the words, ‘any x that is, is
> >>not nothing’. do you have the same concerns about that language? it is
> >>said that predication is an elementary structure of the logos; but, is
> >>predication ’saying something about something’ or ’saying something
> >>about something that is … not nothing’? what do you say it is? it’s
> >>a choice; and, not everyone makes the same choice.”
>
> >ME: Once again the sham appeal to sham freedom as the capriciousness of
> >opinion. Rejecting as you do the age-old formulation stemming from
> >Plato and Aristotle
>
> JP: You offer three choices
>
> >A) ’saying something about something’ [quoting JP]
>
> >B) ’saying something about something that is not nothing’ [quoting JP]
>
> >C) ’saying something about something that is not a member of the empty
> >set’ [quoting JP]
>
> JP: We can set ‘C’ aside for present purposes; it is a version specifically
>
> desgined for mathematicians, since they are supposed to know that one
> can not assign predicates to members of the empty set (because there are
> no such members).
ME: In philosophy, i.e. ontology, ’sets’ and ‘empty set’ cannot be simply
assumed.
> >ME: Let us assume for a moment B as the criterion for predication, and
> also
> >that A is not an admissible criterion for predication
>
> JP: I had hoped that you would agree that version B neither adds to nor
> subtracts from version A; and, that version A neither adds to nor
> subtracts from version B; but, no.
ME: Your claim was, on the contrary, that one could “choose” between A and B
and, indeed, HAD TO choose because, according to you, simply saying ‘is’
about ‘x’ is an incomplete predication, i.e. A, according to you, is not
valid as the criterion for predication. Now you twist that into an equivalent
validity of A and B!
> JP. I’ll grant you that Aristotle and Plato may not have explicitly
> appended
> ‘that is not nothing’ to the formulation you’ve given ’saying something
> about something’. but, if you want to suggest that my version, B above,
> is inconsistent with Aristotle or Plato; then, you’ll need to supply a
> reference to a text where Aristotle or Plato says that one can say
> something about nothing.
ME: My last post (Wed, 09 Jan 2008 14:11:04 +0100) shows, by a detailed
argument, that your criterion B for admissible predication, ’saying something
about something that is not nothing’, leads to an aporia, and is therefore
untenable. The argument was not based on mere references to Aristotle or
Plato (with whom it is well-known that you disagree, rejecting as you do
criterion A), but on the aporia immanent within criterion B itself which
leads of necessity to one talking nonsense.
If you are unable to estimate the strength of this argument, perhaps there
will be someone else in the future who will. Writing philosophically is
always writing for that one future ear that can hear.
Your ‘logic’ as a sophist defies comprehension, but you have to live with
your lack of intellectual conscience, not I.
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