Heidegger

Michael Eldred wrote:

>Joseph Polanik schrieb Wed, 04 Jun 2008 06:47:07 -0400:

>>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.

>>JP: precisely.

>>>>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.

>>JP: 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”.

>ME You do both. In order to define nothing away, you first have to
>distinguish it from something, which necessarily provides also a
>predication of nothing.

your argument is more legalistic than philosophical. when accused of
predicating nothingness, you say: “I didn’t do it; and, if I did,
everyone does it”.

let’s not go down that road. instead why don’t you deal with something
more concrete, a simple assertion that has previously stumped Professor
Crifasi:

I am self-aware.

in the total absence of any reality of any reality type; in the total
absence of any existent of any mode of existence; in the total
absence of any being of any mode of being; etc., — what asserts ‘I am
self-aware’?

Joe

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

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Posted on Sunday, June 15th, 2008 at 6:00 am
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