Heidegger

Cologne 25-Jun-2008

Joseph Polanik schrieb Thu, 19 Jun 2008 05:59:34 -0400:

> Michael Eldred wrote:
>
> >Joseph Polanik schrieb Sat, 14 Jun 2008 08:04:32 -0400:
>
> >>Michael Eldred wrote:
>
> >>>Joseph Polanik schrieb Wed, 04 Jun 2008 06:47:07 -0400:
>
> >>>>Michael Eldred wrote:
>
> >>>>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.
>
> >>JP: 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”.
>
> >ME: I didn’t say that.
>
> JP: of course, you did. you claim that, despite any efforts to define terms
>
> and use logical symbols to ban the attempt to attribute predicates to
> nothing, no one can avoid doing just that.
>
> how is that different from saying ‘everyone does it’.

ME. Not everybody tries to assert that nothing can be predicated of
nothingness, and I have shown how you contradict yourself in the attempt to
do so.

> >ME: I said that, by predicating that something is not nothing, you also
> >predicate that nothing is not something. So even before you get to
> >define nothing away by shrink-wrapping it down to a minus sign, you
> >have predicated that it is not something.
>
> JP: I don’t know whether you presently work in the field of mathematics;
> but, you’ve told us that you have two degrees in math and that you’ve
> written papers in the field. what do mathematicians say about
> attributing predicates to members of the empty set (even though there
> are no such members).
>
> mathematicians might say that any x that is something is not a member of
> the empty set. would they then spin around like you do and claim that it
> follows that a member of the empty set is not a something? in other
> words, would professional mathematicians attribute a predicate ‘not
> something’ (or, whatever) to ‘member of the empty set’?
>
> what other predicates do you feel may be attributed to members of the
> empty set (even though there are no such members)?

ME: Here you are taking mathematical set theory as a yardstick for
philosophical questioning, as if this were possible. But it isn’t. Why?
Because mathematics takes for granted certain entities such as sets and
members of sets, whereas philosophy aims at an ontological clarification of
entities as such.

> >>JP: 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’?
>
> >ME: I’ve already long since disposed of this as part of your so-called
> >Confession of Partial Ignorance
>
> JP: your attempted ‘disposal’ collapsed when you retracted your denial of
> Kant’s claim that being was not a determining predicate.

ME: Kant never said that “being was not a determining predicate”. Kant says
that being is not a real predicate, and by ‘real’ he means ‘belonging to the
concept of a res’. Nor did I ‘retract’ a ‘denial’. However, your assertion
without question that “I know that I am” is not philosophical knowledge but
at best a prelude to entering into the questions of “that”, “I” and “am”.

>
> >ME: since you assert that something is not nothing, the next question is,
>
> >what, precisely, distinguishes nothing from something.
>
> JP: do mathematicians ask ‘what, precisely, distinguishes a member of the
> empty set from a member of a non-empty set?’

ME: You insist on applying the wrong measure to philosophical questions. That
gets you nowhere, i.e. it leaves you where you are with an unshakeable belief
in formal logic.

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_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_ Dr Michael Eldred (c)_-_-
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Posted on Sunday, June 29th, 2008 at 6:00 am
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