From: holmes@garnet.idbsu.edu (Randall Holmes)
Subject: Re: Extensionalism (was re: Russell's Paradox)
Organization: Boise State University
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1992 17:21:05 GMT

In article <1992Nov18.050931.17563@husc3.harvard.edu> zeleny@husc10.harvard.edu (Michael Zeleny) writes:
>In article <1992Nov17.162034.22328@guinness.idbsu.edu>
>holmes@garnet.idbsu.edu (Randall Holmes) writes:
>
>>In article <1992Nov16.220925.28271@tamsun.tamu.edu>
>>cmenzel@tamsun.tamu.edu (Chris Menzel) writes:
>
>>>In article <1992Nov15.215724.21897@guinness.idbsu.edu>
>>>holmes@garnet.idbsu.edu (Randall Holmes) writes:
>
>RH:
>>>>>>_Contra_ Harter (miscellaneous quibbles):
>>>>>>
>>>>>>The Good Russell may have admitted the possibility of "intensions",
>>>>>>but the Exalted Quine has liberated us from the influence of those
>>>>>>"creatures of darkness".  Extensions are adequate for all admissable
>>>>>>purposes.
>
>CM:
>>>>>Really, Randall?!  Could you then please give me an extensional
>>>>>analysis of the sentences in the following arguments that explains why
>>>>>the first is valid but the second is not:
>>>>>
>>>>>1)  John believes there are spies.
>>>>>    Mary believes whatever John does.
>>>>>    Therefore, Mary believes there are spies.
>>>>>
>>>>>2)  John believes that 2+3=5.
>>>>>    Necessarily, 2+3=5 iff first-order logic is undecidable.
>>>>>    Therefore, John believes that first-order logic is undecidable.
>>>>>
>>>>>Or is a purpose admissible just in case it is amenable to
>>>>>extensionalist analysis?
>
>CM:
>>>[Florian's response and lengthy intensional response in which
>>>that-clauses are takent to denote propositions deleted.]
>
>RH:
>>>>But the extensionalist does have a simple recourse; let proposition =
>>>>sentence throughout.
>
>CM:
>>>But *surely* this won't work; nothing in the first argument, for
>>>example, presupposes that John and Mary even speak the same language.
>>>But under those conditions that argument (or perhaps a similar one
>>>where the beliefs under consideration don't include beliefs about
>>>language) could still have true premises (hence a true conclusion as
>>>well).
>>>
>>>Not to mention problems with ambiguity, anaphora, etc. that aren't
>>>resolved at the level of sentences.
>>>
>>>--Chris Menzel
>
>RH:
>>I would then start talking about sentences in different languages and
>>translation.  If Mary speaks German but not English and believes that
>>it will rain, then Mary believes a sentence in German which translates
>>to a sentence in English which asserts that it will rain.  Ambiguity
>>and anaphora are taken into account by considering the effects on
>>context on the interpretation of sentences, etc.  It is a truly
>>horrible program, but nothing is added to it by adding intensional
>>objects (as a new kind of object; now there is a good case for
>>constructing "intensional objects" by extensional techniques from
>>sentences).
>
>I find it truly amazing how often this hoary bit pops up.  There is a
>classic, much-anthologized paper by Church, "On Carnap's Analysis of
>Statements of Assertion and Belief" (Analysis 1950), which rather
>conclusively deals with this sort of proto-inscriptionalist nonsense.
>Observe that your semantic analysis, when *correctly* formulated to
>avoid circularity in reducing "that" clauses to other "that" clauses,
>depends on an additional item of factual information about the meaning
>of a certain English sentence.  Aside from that, once you admit a
>notion of synonymy (as presupposed by that of translatability) into
>your theory, there is but a short reach, as per my argument elsewhere,
>to quantifying over equivalence classes of synonymous sentences.  This
>is all the intensionalism I need for my rabid realist theory of
>propositions, under any reasonable criterion of ontological
>commitment.  End of this discourse.

I have no problem with the existence of equivalence classes of
sentences under any equivalence relation you care to name.  This is
perfectly compatible with an extensionalist ontology.  Defining
"translatability" or "synonymy" is quite a problem, though...  From my
standpoint, literal synonymy (meaning the same thing) holds between
any two statements with the same truth value; a finer equivalence
relation is needed to define "synonymy" in the sense you want (or
"translatability"); perhaps closure under the application of some set
of rules which are guaranteed to preserve truth value is involved (in
the case of translatability, we are dealing with rules for generating
sentences in one language from sentences in another, in addition).


>
>>-- 
>>The opinions expressed		|     --Sincerely,
>>above are not the "official"	|     M. Randall Holmes
>>opinions of any person		|     Math. Dept., Boise State Univ.
>>or institution.			|     holmes@opal.idbsu.edu
>
>cordially,
>mikhail zeleny@husc.harvard.edu
>"Le cul des femmes est monotone comme l'esprit des hommes."


-- 
The opinions expressed		|     --Sincerely,
above are not the "official"	|     M. Randall Holmes
opinions of any person		|     Math. Dept., Boise State Univ.
or institution.			|     holmes@opal.idbsu.edu
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.meta