HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: holmes@garnet.idbsu.edu (Randall Holmes)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.meta
Subject: Re: Excluded Middle (Long)
Date: 9 Nov 92 16:04:34 GMT
Organization: Boise State University

In article <1992Nov8.123739.6079@klaava.Helsinki.FI> amnell@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Marko Amnell) writes:
>In <1992Nov6.183933.16613@guinness.idbsu.edu> holmes@garnet.idbsu.edu 
>(Randall Holmes) writes:
>
>>I am a realist myself, but I do not think that Truth is required in
>>order to search for truths.  This is fortunate, since it seems clear
>>that Truth (as an abstract object) does not exist.
>
>This is the point where the relativist jumps in and says that since
>there is no ultimate standard of truth, but only individual truths
>in such and such circumstances, there is no objetive reality.  He
>would seek to undermine your realism by questioning the validity
>of your conviction that there is an objective standard of fact.
>If there is no ultimate Truth, what can you appeal to besides
>contingent cirumstance?

Truth in particular languages is quite reliable; it can be defined in
a stronger system.  The absolute Truth is analogous to Cantor's
Absolute Infinite.  There is no ground for doubting particular truths.

>
>If it turns out that Truth cannot be defined in any logic, it could
>still play the role of what Kant called a regulative idea of the
>understanding.  Our reason, said Kant, eschews the idea of God or
>an immortal soul, but we can use these idea as `limits' as it were
>to reason.  In a similar way, the notion of Truth as the "ideal end
>of inquiry" regulates our search for individual truths.  It is almost
>a question of faith.  We have faith that science is taking us closer
>to the Truth, although our reason eschews Truth as a completed totality
>because it is paradoxical (supposing that it turns out this way).

It is possible to reason quite precisely about the iterative hierarchy
(the Absolute Infinite), and, similarly, it is possible to reason
about the Truth.  But one can only refer to it indirectly.

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


-- 
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
From: holmes@garnet.idbsu.edu (Randall Holmes)
Subject: Re: Excluded Middle (Long)
Organization: Boise State University
Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1992 18:33:30 GMT

In article <TORKEL.92Nov5224750@lludd.sics.se> torkel@sics.se (Torkel Franzen) writes:
>In article <1992Nov5.203945.12450@klaava.Helsinki.FI> amnell@klaava.Helsinki.
>FI (Marko Amnell) writes:
>
>   >I think we already covered all this two months ago.  I don't see
>   >why realism about scientific theories (which is what I have in
>   >mind here) can't include a belief that science approaches some
>   >sort of ultimate truth about reality.
>
>  Realism about scientific theories "can include" all sorts of things,
>for example the belief that the universe is a banana being eaten by
>the Composite Principle of Aloofness. But why associate these ideas
>with realism?

Realism is a technical term meaning "maintaining the reality of
universals".  Amnell's proposed position is obviously relevant.
Truth is on the face of it a property which we might wish to maintain
corresponds to an abstract object.

-- 
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
From: torkel@sics.se (Torkel Franzen)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.meta
Subject: Re: Excluded Middle
Date: 6 Nov 92 15:02:30 GMT
	<TORKEL.92Nov6130430@isis.sics.se>
	<1992Nov6.142741.26552@klaava.Helsinki.FI>
Organization: Swedish Institute of Computer Science, Kista

In article <1992Nov6.142741.26552@klaava.Helsinki.FI> amnell@klaava.Helsinki.
FI (Marko Amnell) writes:

   >But, in what way is this phrase a tautology?  That is what I'm asking.

  It's a tautology in the ordinary sense of being a logical truth in
propositional logic.

   >Is it just an empty locution (as you seem to think) or is it a law
   >of thought (as Aristotle thought)?  I don't really have an opinion on
   >the status of such tautologies.  I'm curious, and as long as my
   >curiosity lasts, I'll stick with philosophy.

  I'm not asking for any opinion on the status of tautologies. I am
just asking if you can explain what you yourself are saying. In
ordinary discourse, a logically equivalent formulation of a statement
conveys the same information. In your discourse this is not the case,
since apparently "the conditions obtain or do not obtain" cannot be
replaced by e.g. the logically equivalent "if the conditions obtain then
they obtain".  Hence you are making some special use of the tautology.
I am asking you if it is at all possible to explain what you mean by
this special use.
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.meta
From: frank@Cookie.secapl.com (Frank Adams)
Subject: Re: Feminist Philosophy
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1992 22:05:09 GMT
Organization: Security APL, Inc.

In article <1992Nov10.182140.419@news.wesleyan.edu> RGINZBERG@eagle.wesleyan.edu (Ruth Ginzberg) writes:
>In <1992Nov09.220747.135547@Cookie.secapl.com> frank@Cookie.secapl.com writes:
>> In article <1992Nov8.204839.415@news.wesleyan.edu> RGINZBERG@eagle.wesleyan.edu (Ruth Ginzberg) writes:
>> >Now, as a professional philosopher whose specialty is feminist philosophy, let
>> >me give the following advice:  To those who *think* they disagree with feminist
>> >philosophy a priori:  why don't you follow your own philosophical method and
>> >actually let us know what particular argument(s) you disagree with, and on what
>> >basis (invalid inferences? false premises?).  BTW, it is only fair that you
>[...]
>> Let me make a counter-proposal: present to us *one* argument which
>> specifically pertains to feminist philosophy.  Preferably one you agree
>> with.  It is legitimate on the net to say "at this point this gets too
>> complicated for net discussion; go to the literature"; but this is *not*
>> legitimate as an opening salvo.
>
>Would you like that to be one argument FORM or one argument's CONTENT?
>
>If you want a unique argument FORM, see my "Rationality, Women's Reason and
>Logic" in the APA NEWSLETTER ON FEMINISM AND PHILOSOPHY, Spring 1989.
>
>If you want a unique argument w.r.t. CONTENT, may I suggest that you search
>your local library's on-line card catalogue on the 2 keys FEMINIS* AND
>PHILOSOPH*.  Then check out any of the entries which pop up, & enjoy.

Perhaps I wasn't clear enough; I am asking you to actually *present* the
argument on the net.  Not in full detail, of course, but a short summary
suitable for intelligent amateurs.  I'm not going to go track down
references to an area whose worth I doubt, when I all too rarely track down
references in areas where I have an established interest.

As to the question, either is acceptable.  Whichever you think provides the
best argument for the position that there is a distinct subject called
feminist philosophy which is worth studying.
From: amnell@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Marko Amnell)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.meta
Subject: Re: Excluded Middle
Date: 6 Nov 92 10:40:58 GMT
Organization: University of Helsinki

In article <burt.721033026@aupair.cs.athabascau.ca> burt@aupair.cs.athabascau.ca
(Burt Voorhees) writes:
 
>You might also enjoy reading Heidegger's The Metaphysical Foundation
>of Logic.

Yes!  I have this book, but have only skimmed it so far.  I read the
interesting Translator's Introduction by Michael Heim to the English
Edition from Indiana University Press (1984).

>The law of excluded middle is one of the three "laws of thought" that
>give the basic axioms of Aristotelean logic.  Other two, of course,
>being the law of identity and the law of contradiction.  Taken together
>these three laws provide the basis for definition of equivalence
>classes of things.  In other words, we need them to assign generic
>names.  Thus, if we accept these laws, and in particular excluded
>middle, as having metaphysical validity then we are assuming that
>the objects which we identify through application of these laws
>are really existant.
>The catch with this is that the identity established via these laws
>is static.  Nothing can change (as Parmenides showed) since change
>violates the law of contradiction.  And excluded middle, unless we
>view change as an instantaneous jump.  Thus we cannot take these laws
>as describing reality.  

But, how do you know that the laws of logic do not describe reality?
Perhaps Plato was right and we are just too focused on the world of
shadoews to see the true world of Forms?

Rather, they are descriptive of the way that
>our mind parcels up sensation and assigns names.
>Some of the attempts at a quantum logic do away with excluded middle,
>as do the intuitionist (and constructivist) mathematicians.  (This is
>why they do not accept proof by contradiction.)

I find your locution "how our mind parcels up sensation and assigns
names" interesting, but highly elliptical.  Are you saying that we
order the flux of sensation by introducing a framework of concepts
and intuitions?  If so, where does the structure of these psychological
constructs come from?  If everything is really flux, where does the
order come from?

>A book that might interest you is: Horn, R.E. (ed.) Trialectics: Toward
>a Pratical logic of Unity.  Can be ordered from Lexington Institute,
>80 Marrett Road, Lexington, MA 02173, USA

Thanks.

-- 
Marko Amnell
amnell@klaava.helsinki.fi
Graduate Student in Philosophy
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.meta
From: jwales@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (jimmy donal wales)
Subject: Question for Ruth
Organization: Indiana University
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1992 17:11:22 GMT

The recent discussion about legitimacy of the field known as 'feminist
philosophy' has begun to go off track.  I would like to try to bring
it back under control with a particular question.

First, I think that there is a general consensus that the study of
'women's issues' in the context of the history of philosophy is
legitimate.  It is important to examine the suppositions that led
to the subjugation of women for most of the history of mankind,
and the implications of lingering attitudes and ideas for women of
today.

However, Ruth seems to be saying that feminist philosophy is legitimate
_beyond_ those subjects.  She argues (correctly, I think) that the fact
that people are DOING feminist philosophy should lead us to at least
consider the possibility that the work is important, valid, or useful
in some sense.

But many of us are not professional philosophers, and don't have ready
access to the references she cited.  Further, we aren't seeking (at
least for now) a complete understanding of the field.  What we are
seeking is an example of a particular 'feminist' argument or topic
in fields _other_ than examination of political or intellectual
history.

In particular, the subjects 'feminist logic' and 'feminist epistemology'
have been mentioned here lately.  Surely, a reasonable presumption exists
_against_ these being valid.  Logic is logic for everyone.  Other than
(perhaps) some minor sex differences in development among children,
epistemology seems to be a segment of philosophy that has little to 
do with sex.

My question to Ruth is as follows:  What is 'feminist logic'?  
In what way is it different from ordinary 'human logic'?  What are
the attributes of 'feminist logic' that allow us to differentiate
it from other logic?  Is there a distinction 'feminine/masculine'
along the lines of 'modal/deontic'?

I ask my question in a spirit of true desire to know and understand,
and I hope that you will take my request seriously.  I simply don't
have the time or resources to look into the subject extensively, so
it would be very nice to have a professional in the field give me
a thumbnail sketch.

--Jimbo

p.s. Note well that my presumption is that there is no coherent concept
of 'feminist logic'.  This isn't a sexist presumption (quite the opposite,
actually) and isn't intended as an insult against the people doing it.






Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.meta
From: Robert.Vienneau@launchpad.unc.edu (Robert Vienneau)
Subject: Re: Plato's Views on Women
Followup-To: sci.philosophy.meta
Summary: A possible feminist philosophy discussion
Organization: University of North Carolina Extended Bulletin Board Service
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1992 17:13:34 GMT

I know nothing about what feminist philosophers discuss. I offer this as
a suggestion about what they could discuss to show that the idea is not
silly.

Consider the question "What is art?", which might be a standard
philosophical question.

Suppose somebody offers an answer. That answer characterizes as art what is
displayed in museums and talked about by recognized critics. It does not
include quilts, which, in America, have been made mostly by women over the last
several centuries. Quilts have been in use many households, and reflect
the day-to-day concerns of their makers. Many quilts use quite abstract
patterns. There's various standard designs that are common among
different groups, such as Quakers.

The philosopher might ask several questions. How did this answer become
constituted? Why this distinction between the social roles of art and
nonart-like artifacts? Is it coincidence that certain objects that are
created mostly by women and speak to their day-to-day concerns have
been excluded from being designated as art?

One can imagine a similar discussion over the question "what is
history?" One answer is that it is the stories of nations and empires;
wars and political struggles; kings, queens, and presidents. Another
answer might be that is the stories of the day-to-day lifes of various
peoples. The invention of a new scheme of crop rotation might not count
in the first definition, but might be very important to the social
historian. Whose stories count depend on the answer.

Since these are meta-discussions addressing issues traditionally dealt
with by philosophers, they would seem to belong in philosophy
departments. It seems reasonable that women might have different
perspectives. What institutional mechanism should be designed to ensure
that these perspectives get expressed and analyzed, I have no idea, but
then, I am not a professional philosopher or professor. The idea of
developing a speciality of "feminist philosophy" sounds perfectly
reasonable to me.
                                          Robert Vienneau
--
   The opinions expressed are not necessarily those of the University of
     North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the Campus Office for Information
        Technology, or the Experimental Bulletin Board Service.
           internet:  laUNChpad.unc.edu or 152.2.22.80
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.meta
From: mporter@nyx.cs.du.edu (Mitchell Porter)
Subject: Re: DOES GOD EXISTS?
Organization: University of Denver, Dept. of Math & Comp. Sci.
Date: Sat, 7 Nov 92 05:36:21 GMT

andrew@rentec.com (Andrew Mullhaupt) writes:
...
>Lots of people truly believe in God but many of these may not be able to
>give a convincing explanatio why. Personally, I believe that God exists,
>but that we can't say much about what that means. Not that this is an
>evasion, but more an acknowledgement of incapacity.
Well, it may not be an evasion, but it's damned *inconvenient* for someone
like me who wants to know what you (or anyone) means when they speak about
God. You might mean it in an anthropomorphic sense, that God is a
'person', a conscious being possessing intelligence, desires, etc; or in
another way, eg that there is a reason (the shorthand for which is 'God",
under this interpretation) that existence itself exists. Or there might be
some other meaning. Surely you have some conception of what you are
refrring to when you say 'God'. Perhaps when you say 'we can't say much
about what that means', you mean 'we can't know much about the
implications of such a fact (God's existence). But then...

>One point to consider is who is the beneficiary of the decision to believe in
>God. Obviously, not God. Belief in God is something you can _do_. The value and
>importance of doing this is widely agreed to be not so much in the axiom that
>God exists, but in the results you produce from it. These can be either positive
>or negative, and in my opinion this is the real fulcrum of the debate over
>God's existence.

This leads me to think that you *do* have some clear idea of possible
consequences of believing in God, which implies that you think we *can*
draw various conclusions from God's (hypothetical) existence, which 
either means that although you can't say much about God, you (somehow) can
say something about the consequences of believing in God; or else I have
completely misunderstood you.

>Later,
>Andrew Mullhaupt



Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.meta
From: torkel@sics.se (Torkel Franzen)
Subject: Re: Excluded Middle (Long)
Organization: Swedish Institute of Computer Science, Kista
	<1992Nov5.203945.12450@klaava.Helsinki.FI>
	<TORKEL.92Nov5224750@lludd.sics.se>
	<1992Nov5.235132.16787@klaava.Helsinki.FI>
	<TORKEL.92Nov6055054@bast.sics.se>
	<1992Nov8.034010.25414@klaava.Helsinki.FI> <TORKEL.92N
	<1992Nov8.134539.7879@klaava.Helsinki.FI>
Date: Mon, 9 Nov 1992 13:05:17 GMT

In article <1992Nov8.134539.7879@klaava.Helsinki.FI> amnell@klaava.Helsinki.
FI (Marko Amnell) writes:

   >If we wish to introduce the notion of propositions as distinct from both
   >sentences and statements, then what it added is this:  The true statement
   >about the contingent state of affairs in its human context picks out one
   >of an infinity of timeless abstract objects called propositions.

  That's all well and good, but it doesn't answer my question whether
"the totality of true propositions" is a notion better defined than
"the totality of true sentences in all possible languages". If it is
not, questions and speculations about the supposed totality are so
much hot air. If it is, this remains to be shown.

  In metaphysics we can postulate all sorts of things, but we cannot
postulate that we are making good sense. You may postulate that there
is, corresponding to the sentence "this is a banana" uttered in a
certain context, a timeless abstract object, the proposition that this
is a banana. And so on. This postulate, however, is useless when we
try to make sense of the locution "the totality of true propositions",
in the absence of any explanation of which sentences, in which
languages, real or hypothetical, have corresponding propositions, and
how those sentences themselves are to be understood.

  Wittgenstein, in the Tractatus, did not fall into this kind of loose
babbling about a "totality of true propositions" since he explicitly
postulated a particular formal ontology and a corresponding purely
truth-functional language.  Of course, he paid a price for this: the
relation between that ontology and language and our ordinary ontology
and language was obscure in the extreme.
From: torkel@sics.se (Torkel Franzen)
Subject: Re: Excluded Middle (Long)
Organization: Swedish Institute of Computer Science, Kista
	<1992Nov5.203945.12450@klaava.Helsinki.FI>
	<TORKEL.92Nov5224750@lludd.sics.se>
	<1992Nov5.235132.16787@klaava.Helsinki.FI>
	<TORKEL.92Nov6055054@bast.sics.se>
	<1992Nov8.034010.25414@klaava.Helsinki.FI>
Date: Sun, 8 Nov 1992 10:07:35 GMT

In article <1992Nov8.034010.25414@klaava.Helsinki.FI> amnell@klaava.Helsinki.
FI (Marko Amnell) writes:

   >Suppose eg. that there is an omniscient being, would it not know all
   >true propositions?

  You tell me. But first you need to explain "all true propositions".
The idea that there is a totality of true propositions is by no means
self-explanatory. What, in your scheme of things, is the relation
between propositions and sentence in languages? How is the totality of
propositions delimited?  Is "the totality of true propositions"
assumed to be a notion better defined than "the totality of true sentences
in all possible languages"?

   >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.

  Well, no, nothing of the sort. I simply doubt that you or anybody else can
give any content to this talk of "the totality of true propositions" that
justifies your apparently confident use of the term in posing philosophical
questions.

   >But you don't say this.  You say that the very idea of a totality of all
   >propositions about any single object is _senseless_.

  Nope. I say that it's not so much doubtful as senseless. In other words,
what is primarily lacking is any serious attempt on the part of those who
would speak of "the totality of true propositions about this banana" to
explain what they believe themselves to be referring to.
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.meta
Subject: Re: Question for Ruth
From: RGINZBERG@eagle.wesleyan.edu (Ruth Ginzberg)
Date: 12 Nov 92 13:23:37 EDT
 <1992Nov11.213254.426@news.wesleyan.edu> <1992Nov12.042127.17368@husc3.harvard.edu>
Distribution: world
Organization: Philosophy Dept., Wesleyan University
X-News-Reader: VMS NEWS 1.20In-Reply-To: zeleny@husc10.harvard.edu's message of 12 Nov 92 09:21:24 GMTLines: 34

I will not grace Mr. Zeleny's response with a reply, since he has already set
himself outside of my philosophical community by proclaiming himself to be
*opposed* to civil discourse.  One of the distinct pleasures of academic
philosophy is getting to choose from among one's critics those to whom one will
reply.  I reply only to those who converse in good faith, and with reasonably
good manners, which criteria Mr. Zeleny fails to meet.

However I must correct one factual error which, if left uncontroverted, would
give a false impression.

In <1992Nov12.042127.17368@husc3.harvard.edu> zeleny@husc10.harvard.edu writes:

> edifice with a meta-phenomenological redescription of her own.  Now, how
> could the NEH dare to look askance at such selfless devotion to the
> scholarly ideal?  Well, never mind their comfortable predispositions, for
> I can, have, and will continue to do so.

The NEH has no "comfortable predispositions" to fund my, or any other feminist
scholars' research.  You must have missed the recent expose in THE CHRONICLE OF
HIGHER EDUCATION in which Lynne Cheney (head of NEH) was criticized for bias
*against* humanities projects related to gender or feminism.  Indeed, the
criticism was that there are certain "death-words" -- if they appear anywhere
in your grant proposal, it gets an automatic turn-down.  Some of these
blacklisted words allegedly include "feminist", "feminism", "gender", and
"multiculturalism".  In all fairness to Ms. Cheney, she denies these
allegations.  But the investigative reporters from the CHRONICLE OF HIGHER
EDUCATION stood by their story, despite her denial. At any rate, Mr. Zeleny is
in error in asserting that the NEH has "comfortable predispositions" in favor
of funding feminist research.  If anything, it is suspected of bias in the
other direction.

------------------------
Ruth Ginzberg <rginzberg@eagle.wesleyan.edu>
Philosophy Department;Wesleyan University;USA