SUO: Re: Montologies
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Chris Menzel wrote:
>
> On Wed, Jun 25, 2003 at 01:30:21PM -0400, Jon Awbrey wrote:
> > Chris Partridge wrote:
> > >
> > > John,
> > >
> > > I am aware that logic does not directly treat tense.
> > > There was no need for that when it was designed for
> > > mathematics.
> >
> > For those who did not get the memo, our best current models of change,
> > process, physical objects, and physical transformation are
> > mathematical and statistical models.
>
> Perhaps true, but irrelevant to the issue at hand, it seems to me.
> Chris and John are discussing only the treatment of *tense* in logic,
> not models of change, process, etc. That issue has to do with such
> things as whether to use temporal operators or to quantify over times
> (or intervals or the like) directly, appropriate axioms for tense logic,
> etc. Where Chris seems to me to go wrong is in his apparent association
> of logic with the logic of Frege and Russell -- who did largely ignore
> issues of tense (though not indexicality). Logic, the discipline, has
> been concerned with tense since Aristotle (cf. his discussion of such
> future contingents as "There will be a sea battle tomorrow").
>
> Chris Menzel
I guess I would have to say that the various aspects of idexicality and tense,
linguistic markers of attitude, situation, point of view, past, present, future,
inchoativity, progression, preterition, and so on, are some of the ways that our
natural languages support the description of change, process, perspective, and our
participation in them. Also, I had the impression that this stream had the one on
events and processes as one of its main tributaries, but let's not step in that one.
Anyway, when it comes to this dream, I'm not the only one:
http://www.btinternet.com/~martinprior99/susc.htm
http://www.btinternet.com/~martinprior99/Hout36.htm
http://www.btinternet.com/~martinprior99/Hout36_files/gammadelta.jpg
Jon Awbrey
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