From: zeleny@husc10.harvard.edu (Michael Zeleny)
Newsgroups: sci.cognitive,sci.philosophy.tech,sci.lang
Subject: Re: Theories of meaning not relying solely on sym
Date: 16 Nov 92 17:07:25 GMT
Article-I.D.: husc3.1992Nov16.120727.17500
Organization: The Phallogocentric Cabal

In article <1992Nov16.000040.19912@midway.uchicago.edu> 
goer@midway.uchicago.edu writes:

>zeleny@husc10.harvard.edu (Michael Zeleny) 
>writes (I believe in English):

MZ:
>>This is a bogus objection, Chris.  Once your theory identifies the said
>>transformations, it is a short step indeed to characterize restricted
>>versions thereof, which will be bijections in extension.  Then you will
>>want to talk about equivalence classes under the induced relation,
>>thereby committing yourself to abstract propositions and concepts.
>>
>>In general, reification is unavoidable under any reasonable view of
>>ontological commitment.  Even that classic would-be example of gratuitous
>>reification of "sakes" from the use of locutions like "for the sake of
>>X", or "for its own sake" is perfectly reasonable, nay, unavoidable, in
>>any systematic discussion of teleological theory of value.

RLG:
>Please!  Try to resist the temptation to address topics, using highly
>specialized terms, in newsgroups not likely to be familiar with them.
>Perhaps it's just my inadequate education, but I (a sci.lang) reader
>have absolutely no idea what the poster is saying....

Richard, today is your lucky day.  Normally I would tell you to look it
up, but seeing as I expressed myself way too cryptically on one crucial
point, I'll give it another try.  However, kindly keep in mind that
anything cross-posted to sci.philosophy.tech is allowed to contain a fair
percentage of mathematical jargon.

Consider a theory analyzing meaning-preserving tratsformations.  Let the
said transformations be regarded as argument-valued functions (in the
general sense, rather than taken in extension) on arguments, i.e.
self-contained units of discourse.  (An elementary argument may be
construed as a statement, i.e. a sentence in a context.)  In order to get
a reasonable theory of such beasts, you will want them to be broken down
to the elementary level, where each transformation will correspond in
extension to a one-one function t:A->A.  Of the said functions, one would
clearly be the identity I_A; moreover, if an elementary meaning-preserving
transformation is characterized by a function t:A->A, then it is to be
expected that there exists another such transformation corresponding to
its inverse, t^{-1}:A->A.  Finally, and most controversially from a
natural language standpoint, the philosopher will expect that, given two
meaning-preserving functions t,s:A->A, their composition, ts:A->A will
likewise be meaning-preserving.  Given these conditions, which obviously
can be motivated in a way not depending on any reference to generative
processes, all arguments will be partitioned by the equivalence relation
induced by the class of all meaning-preserving transformations, into
equivalence classes of synonymous arguments.  Once your theory starts
referring to the said equivalence classes by including them in the ranges
of its existential quantifiers, you will thereby commit yourself to an
ontology of abstract propositions and concepts.

If you still cannot understand what I mean, you will have a problem in any
analytic discipline.  Go study logic.

>-- 
>
>   -Richard L. Goerwitz              goer%midway@uchicago.bitnet
>   goer@midway.uchicago.edu          rutgers!oddjob!ellis!goer

cordially,
mikhail zeleny@husc.harvard.edu
"Un de mes plus grands plaisirs est de jurer Dieu quand je bande."

P.S.  Is anybody out there objecting to transitivity of synonymy?

P.P.S.  As for the person who intoned that meaning-preservation was a folk
concept: if you really mean it, kindly go to a far-off place, and die by
the Death of a Thousand Cuts.  I can't mean that, can I?  But to resolve
any residual doubts, ask a Chinese friend to explain.