@north,
north;155782 wrote: I remember when I read that 1+1=2 could not be proved , mathematically , on its own
it couldn't because there was no including physical objects
"1+1=2" cannot be proven--Godel's incompleteness theorem tells you this. Nor can the law of non-contradiction ~(P and ~P) be proven. Axioms and first-principle cannot be proven. So?
What does this have to do with physical objects? You can't prove the truth of mathematical theorems, axoms, and postulates by appealing to physical objects either. So what's your point?
north;155782 wrote:the essence of numbers is the existence of physical objects
This is decidely false whatever it means. How is one supposed to go about proving that 2+2=4 is true if and only if I add two oranges and two oranges together to make four oranges? What if I don't add those oranges together? Does that make "2+2=4" false? I doubt it, because I can add any two objects together to make four objects. So the truth of "2+2=4" is not dependent on the existence of any objects.
---------- Post added 04-23-2010 at 03:57 PM ----------
Ahab;155799 wrote: Fast,
I don't think our difference here is due to what technical terms you are using. I think 'Clark Kent' is correctly used by a user of the English language to refer to Clark Kent. And 'Zeus' is correctly used to refer to the Greek God who goes by that name. If I use 'Clark Kent to refer to Zeus then I am using the name incorrectly, I am violating the rules established by convention for its use.
Whether or not you call those names 'empty names' or if you call them 'referring terms' has no impact on the question of correct usage. I am confused as to why you would call them 'referring terms' since you don't think they can be used to refer, but that is a separate question.
As I pointed out to Kennethamy above, my usage here is, as far as I can determine, in complete accord with standard usage. I asked Ken if he could refer me to some grammatical rule that I am violating. So far he hasn't done so. And unless you can do so, I see little reason for abandoning my position.
Fast, this is absolutely right.
[QUOTE=Ahab;155799] When I wrote papers in my college literature courses I often referred to fictional characters. And I often referred to them by using their names. Fictional characters are imaginary persons that are depicted in stories. The professors who graded my papers knew which imaginary persons I referred to. They couldn't have known that if I was only pretending to refer to them. [/QUOTE]Ahab;155799 wrote:
And as Ughaibu pointed out earlier, despite all of our different views on reference ,we all seemed to know which imaginary persons were being referred to in the course of our discussions in this thread.
Because writers pretend to use names to refer to imaginary beings. But imaginary beings don't exist. So they are not actually referring to them. It doesn't matter if someone knows this or not. Language usage is not a guide to a constructing a metaphysical theory.
[QUOTE=Ahab;155799]Also note that I am using 'grammatical rules' in a much broader sense than it is used in a grammar book. I consider lexical definitions and other explanations for the use of a word to be grammatical rules.[/QUOTE]
But it's terribly strange you haven't moved out of your discussing grammar, composition, and lexical definitions--but still nevertheless accept strange counterintuitive metaphysical conclusions you refuse to think about further. This might be dubbed "Ostrich behavior" with respect to the pressing logical consequences of your own theory, such as the silly view called "Meinong's Jungle" which explicitly violates Occam's Razor which says,
Don't multiply entities needlessly. You hold the view that as soon as we use a word as a referring term, it successfully refers to a really existent entity....This is just dumb. The universe would be populated with an infinite amount of entities since every time someone thought up a name that name would name something really existent.
Quote:I agree completely with what Hans-Johann Glock wrote in his book Quine and Davidson on Language, Thought and Reality:
"Reference does not presuppose reality, existence or even enumerability, but rather identitifiability. It must be possible to specify what we are talking about, whether it be through a name, a description or by ostension (direct or deferred}. We can refer to and quantify over those things we can identify, which includes fictional characters among other things.
Is this all you read? Glock is wrong. If we quantify over non-existent entities in our statements, then those statements come out false. Logic says this. So "Sherlock Holmes is a detective" is literally false since you don't have a truth-maker, or a really existent entity purportedly designated by "Sherlock Holmes" that would make this statement true. But for some reason you don't find this problematic.
As every commonsense-minded individual on the street knows, the truth maker is the
story, not
Sherlock Holmes. So we need to proceed from there.
""Sherlock Holmes is a detective" is true-in-the-story" is true, because this sentence is about the story, not about Sherlock Holmes.
---------- Post added 04-23-2010 at 04:34 PM ----------
fast;155777 wrote: It's an important part, but it doesn't tell the whole story. Some people think a car is no more than the sum of its parts, but take a car apart, and it's no longer a car, for a car is more than the mere sum of its parts, as the assemblage of those parts is also important.It's a mistake to think one knows the meaning conveyed by a sentence just because one knows the meaning of the words that comprise a sentence. By the same token, the meaning of sentence is more than the sum of the meaning of the sentence's constituent parts.
huh? Would you please answer my question? We are explicitly talking about reference NOT meaning. What are the necessary and sufficient conditions that make a word or set of words a "referring term"? Can you please tell me?
It starts like this: "A word is a referring term if and only if _______..."
Here is an entry on the distinctions between
names, proper nouns, definite descriptions, and
reference:
Names (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
---------- Post added 04-23-2010 at 05:19 PM ----------
ughaibu;155790 wrote:If Clark Kent was a concrete object, then he wouldn't be fictional, would he? Therefore, Clark Kent is not a concrete object.
Do you have any argument in support of your second contention, in other words, why do you say that numbers wouldn't be concrete objects?
But Clark Kent is not an imaginary object either, since imaginary objects can't eat, sh*t, and kiss other imaginary objects like Louis Lane.
Obviously numbers are not concrete objects. No one supposed they were. If they were, can you tell me which physical objects numbers are in my empirical world that I am aquainted with?
Countenancing the actual existence of numbers is indispensible for scientific theory to make any sense or come out true. If they didn't exist, all scientific theories would be literally false. It depends on what consequences you think are more palatable.
Either numbers don't exist, and every mathematical statement and scientific theory is necessarily false, even the ones we thought were correct. Or, numbers do exist and at least some things we think are true are really, in fact, true.
[/RIGHT]
