Michael writes:
"At some point, Cheerskep, our discussions must get beyond the diversion
caused by using a copulative versus a predicating verb."
I claim I'm not focusing on a diversion, but a seriously misleading mistake.
And the 'versus' doesn't apply: ascribing a quality/attribute to something
("predication"), and asserting that it is a particular kind of thing
("categorization"), both suffer from the same confusion.
I want to suggest that when we categorize -- that is, say, "XXX is a
such-and-such" -- we ultimately to a greater or lesser degree cite sense data
as our
justification for our assertion.
Picture a degree scale. At the high end is an example like this:
A substance is given to a chemist or physicist, and he's asked to determine
what it "is". He'll apply tests all of which provide observable "evidence".
He'll use devices designed to yield sense data, such as a microscope or a
spectrometer. (He'll even use the likes of the human nose and tongue if their
evidence applies.) If he observes the substance's atomic number number is 79;
its
atomic mass at 196.96655; its melting point 1064.43 degrees Celsius; its
boiling
point 2807.0 degrees, it yields no taste, etc, he's likely to announce, "This
substance is gold."
He is not saying the substance "is" the word, or that the word "is" the
substance. At base, he's saying this: "If a substance, when examined,
occasions
these observations, these sense data, we use the English word 'gold' to label
it;
we call it 'gold'."
That's "at base"; since he's not a philosopher, the scientist is liable to
express his findings this way: "That substance IS the element gold." My
position
is that, at base, what he has in mind with the word 'gold' is a substance
that yields these observations, so, in effect, he's saying, "A substance that
yields these observations is a substance that yields these observations." He
is
conveying a rule for a word-usage. "When that happens we call it by the word
'gold'."
I'll temporarily skip over the objects/events in the middle of our
degree-scale -- objects that we would ultimately justify our calling them
such-and-such
by citing sense data, but where it's more difficult than with concrete objects
'gold' or, say, 'apple'. This middle section of the degree scale would
harbor abstractions like justice, democracy, beautiful, "aesthetic
experience",
safe, alive, terrorism, and even "justification" itself.
I skip to the low end of the scale where there are words for alleged objects
-- but ultimately we can cite no sense data that allegedly "prove" they should
be categorized, called by those words, called a such-and-such -- or that,
indeed, the alleged objects exist at all. These are objects where every sense
datum is "accounted for" as an observation of a more concrete object, and yet
some people insist the most essential causative factor is also present -- for
example a "tree spirit". Primitives believed all trees were "inhabited" by a
spirit. You could hear the spirit in the creaking of the branches, see it in
the
rustle of the leaves. If the spirit of a maple tree was offended, she would
not
yield the sap to create syrup.
We can presume the primitives' imaginations came up with these fictional
beings in attempts to account for events they couldn't otherwise explain.
Poseidon
was conjured as the god of the oceans, who, when angered, caused floods and
tidal waves. He was also blamed for otherwise inexplicable earthquakes, and
ev
en for more removed calamities like epilepsy. How else could such
eccentricities of nature be explained except as acts of a willful spirit or
god?
In our more scientific age, we can "explain" such events by, say, tectonics,
and the shifting of pieces of the earthcrust. (Believer: "Ah, but who moves
those tectonic plates -- ever think of that?" Scientist: "No -- we can explain
that too, without any reference to an act of will by a god or something. See,
what happens isb&.")
(A study published just this month states that more than half the people in
the U.S. believe they have been saved at one time or another by a "guardian
angel"? "How else to explain why our car, which never had trouble before,
broke
down on the day I was driving to the airport. I missed the flight -- and it
crashed!")
Veterans of this forum may foresee where I'm going with this. There are still
in the twentieth century those who "account for" otherwise inexplicable
events with their sincere belief in categories like luck, curses, fate,
destiny,
miracles, angels, acts of God, the devil, sins, and more -- for none of which
they can cite a direct observation.
Instead, they are moved by sense data that in their judgment couldn't
possibly be accounted for except by reference to one of those categories. This
would
be comparable to the "circumstantial evidence" often used in courts, except,
perhaps, that the lawyer in court is asserting the evidence implies certain
earlier events occurred all of which would have yielded data of the "five
senses"
if they had been observed.
In a debate, you must be ready to cope with those who will assert they
directly observe not just the event, but the naked quality itself. "I can SEE
his
evil/goodness/talent/holiness/luckiness etc."
"No, no!" we may exclaim, "all you ever see is this and this and this -- none
of which entails the existence of something that is intrinsically not
observable directly."
"Oh but it is. I talked to God just last night, and he talked to me. I heard
him, I saw him, and I FELT him in the room."
Of course, given the announced subject of our forum, I submit that another
quality/category of this sort is. . ."artness/work of art". Some would justify
their position that one should not just CALL a work "art" but that it "IS"
"art" if it occasions in them a special feeling they call an "aesthetic
experience".
This argument has a fundamental flaw: a work that occasions that experience
in one sensible, cultured person may leave a second, similarly-equipped,
person
cold.
The first person can never point at the "artness". All he can do is cite this
opulent line he says stirs him, that juxtaposition of colors he says excites
him. The second person could reply that he sees all those things, and they do
nothing at all to him. In fact, the opulent line in this picture disgusts him.
"Show me artness. You can't."
Stipulation is not creation, so no committee or curator can make a work "BE"
art simply by issuing an "institutional" definition of 'art'. Suppose I say,
"Any 23-word English sentence containing the word 'art' is a foopgoom." Have I
made that sentence "BE" a foopgoom?
**************
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