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January 13th, 2008, search related
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Saying Something about Something that is not Nothing

>Joseph Polanik schrieb Sat, 12 Jan 2008 04:41:45 -0500:

>>Michael Eldred wrote:

>>>Joseph Polanik schrieb Fri, 11 Jan 2008 05:25:26 -0500:

>>>>There are two formulas for defining predication:

>>>>A) ’saying something about something’

>>>>B) ’saying something about something that is not nothing’

>>>>what does A allow (or prohibit) that B does not allow (or prohibit)?

>>>ME: Criterion A allows as a valid predication, ‘x is not nothing.’
>>>B doesn’t.

>>JP: does definition A require the following as a valid biconditional:

>>’x is’ ‘x is not nothing’.

>ME: If “biconditional” means ‘if and only if’ or ‘iff’,

Yes, ‘biconditional’ means ‘if and only if’.

>then a qualified ‘yes’. Criterion A does not “require” the
>biconditional. Rather, the equivalence is simply valid under criterion
>A as possible valid predications of ‘x’, viz. ‘is’ and ‘is not
>nothing’.

well, criterion B iss intended to require ‘x is x is not nothing’;
so, there is a difference between your interpretation of A and my
interpretation of B; but, we’ll let that slide for the moment.

>But NB: the terms ‘is’, ‘not’ and ‘nothing’ are still merely
>preontological notions which cannot be clarified by formal logical
>operations.

axiomatic systems have undefined or primitive terms; so, I’m not
concerned that ‘not’ and ‘nothing’ may not be precisely defined. in any
event, for present purposes, ‘not’ is sufficiently well-defined thru its
use in the logic on which a rational inquiry depends.

I’m using ‘x is x is not nothing’ as a way of defining ‘is’ thru its
use.

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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