From: zeleny@husc10.harvard.edu (Michael Zeleny)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech,sci.logic
Subject: Re: No Reification Here
Date: 31 Dec 92 06:43:54 GMT
Article-I.D.: husc3.1992Dec31.014356.18909
Organization: The Phallogocentric Cabal

In article <1hsfv0INN2mt@cat.cis.Brown.EDU> 
PL436000@brownvm.brown.edu (Jamie) writes:

>>From: zeleny@husc10.harvard.edu (Michael Zeleny)

J:
>>>>>Even if you hate Blackburn, there are more respectable examples.
>>>>>De Finetti was an expressivist about probability predicates, for
>>>>>example. Allan Gibbard has a pretty good expressivist theory of
>>>>>normative judgments.

MZ:
>>>>It remains to be shown that expressivism, as exemplified above, is
>>>>bereft of an ontology of properties.

J:
>>>I didn't say, of course, that expressivism is bereft of an ontology
>>>of properties. Expressivists may be quite happy with some properties,
>>>but wish to rid their ontology of others.

MZ:
>>Unless they avoid referring, explicitly or implicitly, to other
>>objective properties, while so ridding their ontology, my point still
>>stands.

J:
>Just a moment.
>Here is the issue that I thought we were discussing.
>
>Is it true that a given predicate is meaningful iff it expresses
>a property?

Such is my claim.

J:
>I am uncertain about this issue. It is not clear to me that a
>predicate with an expressivist analysis expresses a property.
>But it does seem to me that a predicate with an expressivist
>analysis is meaningful.
>
>There is a separate question: do expressivists allow for ANY
>properties in their ontologies? I believe virtually all of them
>do. But, they still think that there are some meaningful
>predicates which express no property.

And I say that this remains to be shown.

MZ:
>>How is an attitude not a property?

J:
>Well, an attitude might be thought of as a property. But here is
>what I thought the issue was.
>
>In regular old realist semantics, the semantic value of a predicate
>is a property. The predicate contributes that property to propositions
>expressed by sentences in which the predicate occurs.

Not so fast.  In "regular old realist semantics", the semantic value
of a predicate is a propositional form, involving at least one
property.  Remember the Russellian quest for the true logical form of
language!

J:
>In expressivist, anti-realist (or "irrealist" as it's fashionably
>called nowadays) semantics, a predicate may have no descriptive
>semantic value at all. It contributes nothing to any proposition
>because sentences in which it occurs express no proposition.
>
>Here is a sample from Allan Gibbard's expressivist theory of
>normative predicates.
>
>  "To call something rational is to express one's acceptance of norms
>  that permit it." .... Normative talk is part of nature, but it does
>  not describe nature. In particular, a person who calls something
>  rational or irrational is not describing his state of mind; he is
>  expressing it. To call something rational is not to attribute
>  some particular property to that thing--not even the property of
>  being permitted by accepted norms. The analysis is not directly
>  of what it is for something to *be* rational, but of what it is
>  for someone to *judge* that something is rational. We explain
>  the term by saying what state of mind it expresses. In this sense
>  the analysis is *expressivistic*, and in too big a mouthful, I shall
>  call it the *norm-expressivistic analysis*.
>                              [Wise Choices, Apt Feelings pp.7-8]
>     [The quotation marks appear in the original.]
>
>I hope this is clear enough for present purposes. According to
>Gibbard, there is no property of being rational. But "is rational"
>is meaningful in that it expresses a special kind of endorsement.

Well, I find the distinction between describing and expressing
*itself* to be bereft of cognitive value.  Does this mean that Gibbard
is doing expressivist philosophy?  Or does it mean that I simply don't
care for his brand of vacuous verbigeration?  You be the judge.

J:
>Similar ideas can be found in de Finetti.

That's too bad.  I had more respect for him.

J:
>>>De Finetti believed that the predicate "Has probability .5"
>>>expressed no property, but that it was nevertheless meaningful
>>>in that it expressed the speaker's degree of belief. (Again,
>>>"expressed" in the second sense. Perhaps I will try to avoid
>>>this locution, but it's not easy since the name of the view
>>>is "expressivism.")

MZ:
>>The speaker's degree of belief surely is a property of the speaker.

J:
>It is. But, according to de Finetti, someone who says "The eternal
>damnation of the heretics has probability .5" does not express
>a proposition about his state of mind, about his degree of belief.
>He rather expresses his degree of belief.

This does not sound like communication to me.

J:
>If I utter "Ow! you son of a bitch" when Tom Nagel steps on my
>gouty toe, I have not expressed the proposition that I am in pain,
>but I have expressed my pain.

I refer you to Frege's article on thoughts.  Your pain is inherently
inexpressible, though propositions about it can be readily expressed.
_Au fond_, it is a difference in semantic theory, that generates our
disagreement.  Consequently, to the extent that we remain exemplars of
our own semantic views, our difference is bound to stay unresolved.

>Jamie

cordially,
mikhail zeleny@husc.harvard.edu
"Le cul des femmes est monotone comme l'esprit des hommes."
Xref: sparky sci.philosophy.tech:4656 sci.logic:2507