From: zeleny@husc10.harvard.edu (Michael Zeleny)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.meta
Subject: Re: Excluded Middle
Date: 9 Nov 92 17:35:07 GMT
Organization: The Phallogocentric Cabal

In article <1992Nov9.160938.15423@guinness.idbsu.edu> 
holmes@garnet.idbsu.edu (Randall Holmes) writes:

>In article <1992Nov8.152455.17228@husc3.harvard.edu>
>zeleny@husc10.harvard.edu (Michael Zeleny) writes:

>>In article <1992Nov8.184850.1742@guinness.idbsu.edu>
>>holmes@opal.idbsu.edu (Randall Holmes) writes:

>>>In article <1992Nov7.052154.17197@husc3.harvard.edu>
>>>zeleny@husc10.harvard.edu (Michael Zeleny) writes:

>>>>In article <1992Nov6.184703.16761@guinness.idbsu.edu> 
>>>>holmes@garnet.idbsu.edu (Randall Holmes) writes:

RH:
>>>>>I don't think that "Reality is the Truth about the world".  Reality is
>>>>>the world itself; Truth is what can be said about the world.  Of
>>>>>course, what can be said about the world is part of the world, and
>>>>>when we start considering what can be said about that aspect of the
>>>>>world, we get into trouble.  Thus Tarski's paradox, etc.

MZ:
>>>>Let me see if I am getting this straight.  You, Randall, are
>>>>presumably "part of the world" itself, and _ipso facto_ part of
>>>>Reality.  Consequently, what I can say about you is Truth.
>>>>
>>>>So we have that
>>>>
>>>>	Randall Holmes is a wood duck
>>>>
>>>>is part of Truth, insofar as I can, and indeed do say it right now.

RH:
>>>It would be an element of the set of true propositions in your
>>>language, 

MZ:
>>Am I hearing the term `proposition' from a self-professed extensionalist?

RH:
>"Proposition" means "sentence".

Certainly not to me, nor, I suspect, to the vast majority of
philosophers.  If you mean "sentence", then write `sentence'.

RH:
>>>	   i.e., an element (not a part) of what I am terming
>>>Truth[MZL] (where MZL is your language); but all of this depends on my
>>>being a wood duck, which does not hold.

MZ:
>>What do you mean by "does not hold"?

I note a conspicuous absence of answer.  Please be specific next time.

RH:
>>>AHHH!  I see that I did goof here!  Of course, Truth is not merely
>>>what can be said about the world, but what can be said _correctly_
>>>about the world.  Thank you!

MZ:
>>Now all that remains is for you to explain the meaning of the adverb...

RH:
>This can be explained in the same sort of way that the iterative
>hierarchy can be explained.  "Not subsumed under a universal" does not
>mean "incomprehensible".  Truth in particular languages can be
>explained, and a hierarchy of languages constructed which evades
>Tarski's paradox by not being a completed totality.

Randall, I am willing to grant you the possibility that correctness
may be explained, say, by contextual definition, *only* if you follow
through by offering an adequate explanation thereof along these lines.
Analogously, impotence is not characterized by inability to imagine or
claim performance, but by a consistent failure to do so.  I hereby
accuse your alleged extensionalist philosophy of a conspicuous lack of
erectile tissue.  Feel free to prove me wrong.

MZ:
>>>>Did I get your proposal right, or is there anything more profound to it?

MZ:
>>Same question once again.

One more time, explicitly: so far, you have no proposal, just
equivocal periphrastic obfuscatology.

>-- 
>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
" -- I shall speak bluntly, because life is short."
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.meta