SUO: Re: Sand Reckoning
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JS: To a very large extent, I agree.
JA: Since it's terribly unlikely that any of us are anywhere near
grokking the "essence" of anything -- I do not deny that essences
exist, indeed, I think it is very likely that some do, it's just
that most of the historically nominated candidates have so far
turned out to be historical accidents -- I think that it is
far more useful in the meantime, awaiting the end of inquiry,
to speak of our descriptions of things and how they change
from time to time, and how they change in appearance
from point of view to point of view.
JS: This, by the way, leads to one of my major criticisms of DOLCE.
They use an unqualified modal operator to mark what they claim is
"essential" to some type. As I have pointed out many times, every
claim of necessity rests on some implicit "law" that makes something
necessary or essential. Instead of an unqualified "essence marker",
we should require a explicit statement of some law (or axiom) that
states the principle for whatever essence is being assumed. For
more on that subject, see my paper "Laws, Facts, and Contexts":
JS: http://www.jfsowa.com/pubs/laws.htm
From my im-POV-erished state, I guess what I see is a group of people,
in whose collabored descriptions of the world, the string "essential"
prominently figures. Fine, I will not attack it, but merely attach
it with some convenient index of the group, say, "essential_DOLCE".
What it means to me what it means to them I will have to reckon in
terms of its fruits under their cultivation, sweet or sour, as the
case may be. Of course, being experienced, I have my suspicions.
TJ: Quine's demolition of the analytic/synthetic dichotomy does
for concepts what Witt's family resemblances does for things.
It blurs the sharp distinctions. In particular, it blurs the
dichotomy between a statement being true by definition (analytic
a priori, in Kantian terms) and being true by empirical matter of
fact (synthetic a posteriori, in Kantian terms).
JA: Can you explain to me in your own words
how you think that Quine demolished the
analytic/synthetic dichotomy?
JS: Good question. In any case, I would throw the words "analytic" and
"synthetic" into the same dustbin as "universals" and "particulars".
As a replacement, I would recommend the approach in the laws.htm paper.
Well, I guess I will give TJ more time to answer.
JA: The dichotomy between dichotomies and continua is a false dichotomy.
In mathematics, continua are constructed by way of limit processes,
like Cauchy sequences, from dichotomies, like Dedekind cuts, and
continuous functions are constructed via "step" functions.
One of the most spectacular elaborations of this way
of doing things is Conway's and Knuth's concept of
"surreal numebers", which stuff vastly more points
in a line that even the real numbers contain,
all constructed by means of certain types
of dichotomies. And incidentally, akin
to a particular type of "game theory".
JS: I agree.
JA: Not all of it, but a large share of these ideas from Whit. and Witt.
amount to little more than popularizations of ideas that have long
been stock in trade in topology, algebraic and point set flavors.
JS: I believe that Witt. and Whit. have more to offer, but in any case
I agree that philosophers have a lot to learn from mathematicians
and physicists.
Yes, let me retract the minimizing implications of "popularization",
as I certainly read enough of them, and they served to whet my wits
and my appetite from an age when I could hardly digest the hard stuff,
and I wish more such lights would take the trouble to write good ones --
and then again, I was only talking about a particular set of ideas
about homologies and topologies when I said "large share".
JS: Peirce, Whitehead, and Wittgenstein are three "outsiders" who applied
their training in mathematics, physics, and engineering to revolutionize
philosophy. In return, the 20th century analytic philosophers did their
best to ignore them. I believe it's now time to bring them back with
a vengence. See my paper on "Signs, Processes, and Language Games":
JS: http://www.jfsowa.com/pubs/signproc.htm
Vindication. I like the sound of that!
On to T^3, the Toyota Truck Terminator!
Jon Awbrey
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