Heidegger

Michael Eldred wrote:

>Joseph Polanik schrieb Sun, 01 Jun 2008 09:48:12 -0400:

>>Michael Eldred wrote:

>>>Joseph Polanik schrieb

>>>>Michael Eldred wrote:

>>>ME: All I pointed out was that you can’t help predicating
>>>something of nothing,

>>JP: on the contrary, one *can* prevent predicating something of
>>nothing simply by defining ‘is’ and ‘Nothing’ thru use:

>>where

>>N = ‘Nothing’
>>E = existential quantifier
>> = biconditional (ie equivalence)

>>[1]: (x)(-N)

>>translation: for any x that is, x is not Nothing

>>this is logically equivalent to

>>[2]: -(Ex)(Nx)

>>translation: it is not the case that there is an x such that x is
>>Nothing. thus:

>>[3] (x)(-N) -(Ex)(Nx)

>>hence, one can not attribute predicates to nothing because the word
>>’nothing’ has no referent to which any predicate may be attributed.

>ME: If you define nothing away, then you define nothing away.

precisely.

>ME: Nothing is the negation of any “x that is”. All you show is that
>formal logic (i.e. your logical positivist thinking) cannot cope with
>the thought of nothing. To convert negation into a mere minus sign “-”
>is sheer thoughtlessness that evades the problem of nothing, negation,
>not, which is one of the most difficult in philosophy. Shrink-wrapping
>the phenomena down to formally manipulable symbols makes them vanish
>rather than doing what needs to be done, namely, to unfold the
>phenomena into an adequate conceptual language.

your perception is correct; but, your judgement is way off.

you correctly see that formal logic does not allow attributing
predicates to nothing(ness); and, that putting an argument into symbolic
forms will make the problem (attempts to predicate nothing) vanish.

you appear to be making the insinuendo “… and, that’s a bad thing”.
that’s a judgement, a bad judgement.

>>>ME: The empty set is something. And nothing is not the empty set.

>>JP: the empty set is a real set; but, it has no members. similarly,
>>’nothing’ is a real word; but, it has no referent.

>>one can not attribute any predicate to nothing because the word
>>’nothing’ has no referent to which any predicate may be attributed.

>ME: You have merely formalized “referent” as “x that is”, but nothing
>is the negation of any “x that is”. We’ve been here before: nothing is
>not something, and that is what you cannot avoid predicating of
>nothing.

you are contradicting yourself. above you that I have avoided
predicating ‘nothing’ by defining it away and that I have made the
problem vanish by using formally manipulable symbols. you can’t then
turn around and claim “you cannot avoid predicating of nothing”.

that’s just more Heideggerian doublespeak.

=== === ===

Note: Naming Convention: I’m renaming the “Heideggerian Anomaly” to
the “Heideggerian Nothing(ness) Anomaly”, HNA. using this more
descriptive name may avoid the suggestion that we’ve already established
that there are no other anomalies in Heideggerian thinking.

HNA, consists in refusing to acknowledge a refusal to accept the
impossibility of attributing predicates to nothing(ness).

Joe

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

@^@~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~@^@
 http://what-am-i.net
@^@~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~@^@

Posted on Sunday, June 8th, 2008 at 6:07 am
comment | rss 2.0 | trackback