re:RE: SUO: RE: First piece of 4D ontology
Pat,
I agree with the following statement:
>If this means that the formalism being used should be given a clear
>semantics, I agree wholeheartedly.
But the following remark is off the mark:
> I would however point out that
>this requirement seems to be at odds with a Peircian emphasis on
>meaning depending on the circumstances of use of a symbol by an agent.
Neither I nor Peirce would accept responsibility for what
anyone else may have said or implied in some messages to the
SUO list. But I would like to refer you to my commentary on
Peirce's MS 514, especially to the passage where I compare
what William of Ockham (whose writings P. had studied in
great detail) said about what came to be called "model theory"
to what Peirce and Tarski said about the same topic. (If you
use a browser, click "find" for the word "Ockham"):
http://www.bestweb.net/~sowa/peirce/ms514.htm
In other passages, Peirce had defined "logic proper" as the
science of the formal conditions for the truth of statements
(by which he meant an Ockham-Tarski style of model theory).
In 1935-36, Tarski made a great advance over what Frege and
Russell said, but Tarski's advance does not seem very great
when you compare it to what Ockham and Peirce had said.
John