From: joechip@hardy.u.washington.edu (Erich Vandenloos)
Subject: Re: A note on Modal Logic that has nothing to do with Ikky Sex
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle
Date: Sun, 20 Dec 1992 08:41:41 GMT

Michael Zeleny says:

>EV:
>>But there are other ways of accounting for counterfactuals which do not
>>commit one to the existence of possible worlds (see Grice's "Studies in 
>>the Way of Words" and Strawson's " 'IF' and '>' ") , and I do think 
>>that using possible worlds to account for counterfactual conditionals 
>>does commit one to that.

>The approaches of Grice and Strawson intrinsically lack the rigor
>required for analyzing the semantics of anything but ordinary
>discourse (in fact, I believe that they fail even in that case).
>Surely the language of science stands in need of a more certain
>foundation.

I feel obligated to point out that the _real_ language of science is
ordinary language, and it is a philosopher's fantasy to think otherwise.
I would be interested in knowing why you think Grice's approach fails for
ordinary language, because I have developed a real interest in his
stuff. So please point me toward any material that might be pertinent.

I don't see any need, either, to try to account for counterfactual
conditionals as far as the "language of science" goes, if by that you mean
(as I suspect you do) formal logic. All counterfactual conditionals are
true in the language of science. The problem with them appears when you
try to illuminate the relationship between '>' (the hook, unhappily
translated) and 'if... then...'. If you want to use a natural language
standard of truth when discussing what can with no problems be seen as
material conditionals, why not just go full bore and use natural language.
You seem to want the hook to have some meaning outside of its truth-
functional one, and this I can't understand.

>>EV:
>>I take issue with possible worlds because of my ontological scruples. They
>>may be convenient; it is convenient too to account for physical occurences
>>by saying they were caused by spirits, but that doesn't mean it's a good 
>>thing to do. (As Wittgenstein says, just because there's no fence along 
>>the cliff doesn't mean you have to go jump off).

>Three hundred years ago, you might have taken issue with imaginary
>numbers because of your "ontological scruples"; a century ago, you
>would have rejected transfinite numbers.  Face it, -- your attitude is
>not conducive to any sort of progress in human knowledge.

That's an interesting way to look at it. Transfinite numbers are fun; I
like them as much as the next guy, but when you claim that they've 
progressed human knowledge, I can't help but wonder what you mean. It seems
funny to me to see them as anything other than a beautiful creation. (I
am not Wittgenstein, and hence will acknowledge that they're beautiful.)
John von Neumann once made an interesting remark about math's requiring
extremely good taste on the part of its practitioners once it strays from
semi-applied settings and the "real world." I think that Cantor was just
staying within the bounds of good taste.

I would take issue with imaginary numbers now, probably, except that they
aren't imaginary, they're just ordered pairs of reals. I can make sense of
the reals and they don't really pose problems for me. But possible worlds
don't seem to do anything necessary or interesting. Necessary truth
doesn't seem important if you've already got truth and so a possible
worlds appraoch just strikes me as a baroque, nay roccoco, luxury.

>>EV:
>>If appeals to ordinary language are obscurantist, how much more so are 
>>appeals to possible worlds!

>>Appeals to ordinary language reduce the expressive capacity of human
>>speech to its lowest common denominator, the canaille.  Appeals to
>>sets and possible worlds raise it to the certainty of mathematics.
>>You are most welcome to your preferences; I prefer to stay with my
>>own.
 
Raising ordinary language to the certainty of mathematics would be an 
unwelcome boon, as there would then be little to say. What the real
payoff is to an appeal to possible worlds is that you then aren't 
speaking about anything. If we limited our language to the exercises
in Mates' "Elementary Logic," we would achieve the same certainty (and
sterility) and we wouldn't have to appeal to anything outside of (you
guessed it) elementary logic.

I hate to be churlish and down-to-earth, but if the "language of science"
is so strong and expressive, why don't people post articles to sci.phil
in it.

Erich Vandenloos