From: amnell@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Marko Amnell)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.meta
Subject: Re: Excluded Middle (Long)
Date: 8 Nov 92 03:40:10 GMT
Organization: University of Helsinki

In <TORKEL.92Nov6055054@bast.sics.se> torkel@sics.se (Torkel Franzen) writes:

>In article <1992Nov5.235132.16787@klaava.Helsinki.FI> amnell@klaava.Helsinki.
>FI (Marko Amnell) writes:

>   >If one considers realism to be the thesis that there
>   >is an objective, mind-independent reality, then it seems natural to
>   >me that this metaphysical goal is in some sense the totality of
>   >all true propositions about the world.

The following paragraph contains some pretty strong statements.  Let's
break it up.

>  Well, to me it seems natural to couple the thesis that there is an objective
>mind-independent reality with a rejection of the idea of a "totality of
>true propositions about the world" as confused and unjustifiable.

To say that something is _confused_ is to assert something like that there
is no clear and distinct idea associated with the locution.  Why is this
phrase confused?  Can you not even _imagine_ what it would be like for
there to be a collection of all true propositions about the world?
Suppose eg. that there is an omniscient being, would it not know all
true propositions?  Apparently so, and this means that you are saying
that the very notion of omniscience is confused.  I disagree.  I think
I can conceive what an omniscient being would be like.  Just imagine
a succesion of larger and larger computers, with the limit as the
series approaches an infinitely large memory.  What is confused about
this idea?

Then you say that the idea of a "set of all true propositions about
the world" is also _unjustifiable_.  I take this to mean that you would
assert that there is no conceivable way that it could be verified
whether a certain collection of true propositions T was the total
Truth or not.  How do you know that such a thing could not be checked?
Suppose there is a candidate collection T of propositions.  To
justify that it is the whole truth we would need an infinite number
of operations.  But, unless you are a mathematical finitist, there
is nothing unacceptable about the _idea_ of a justification procedure
that consists of an infinite number of steps.

 Eating a
>banana, I have no doubt about its mind-independent reality. The assertion
>that there is a "totality of true propositions" about the banana, on the
>other hand, is not so much doubtful as senseless.

Now you add that the idea of a "totality of true propostions" even about
one object, eg. a banana, is _senseless_.  To say it is a doubtful idea
would be to say that one could imagine such a totality existing for eg. 
God but that it is questionable that such a totality could actually exist
in the real world.  This would be akin to the old criticism of sense data
theorists that it is doubtful that one could ever translate the notion
of a physical object into a infinite number of observation statements.

But you don't say this.  You say that the very idea of a totality of all
propositions about any single object is _senseless_.  This is to say you
deny any meaning to it whatsoever.  Do you really mean this?  Do you
mean to say that the words "the collection of all propositions correctly
asserted of the banana" carries no meaning for you at all?  If this is 
indeed your position, I don't understand it.  It seems absurd to deny
meaning to this perfectly ordinary phrase of English.  Maybe you can
show me that such collections of propositions are not possible, but it
is absurd to deny that this phrase lacks any sense whatsoever.

-- 
Marko Amnell
amnell@klaava.helsinki.fi
Graduate Student in Philosophy