4.4.2012: Tukka had said: Hi Craig, Thank you for your interest. I am currently suspended for a week for accidentally posting five messages per day, so I will reply personally. You said:
"Tuukka, I understand the kind of language used in the text, but without some examples I don't get an idea of what it's about. Craig" A common fallacy in metaphysics, at least among amateurs, is that we have a predicate, which is expected to mean something, that is not defined. One such predicate would be "everything that exists". We might define this predicate to have a certain property, such as that of being physical. In this case we would have constructed an ontology known as physicalism. Ron adds: Another common fallacy among amateurs is not researching the core fundamental problems of philosophy well enough to honestly begin to formulate extensions of explanation that are of practical meaning, a lot of confusing jargon tends to become created when attempting to explain concepts in such a way that requires greater explanation. Any useful predicate is simple, and economical in explanation. Analyzing the traditionally rationalist term of "everything that exists" or "God" or "reality" or any abstract noun, the discussion is aided by revisiting the monist/pluralist or the rationalist/empiricist or the "one/many" inquires of the ancient Greeks. The Socratic dialogs of Plato and Aristotle's "metaphysics" are a great place to start to gain a more intelligible hold on the issue you raise. Tuuka: Let's say a physicalist encounters an idealist, who asserts, that "everything that exists" is mental, and speaks of mental objects. In this case the physicalist would make a logical error, if he would speak of mental objects, like the idealist, with the implicit assumption that they are speaking of the same thing. In the language of SOQ, the physicalist would be using nonrelativizably the concepts that refer to the mental objects. He would detach them from their context. Generally speaking, our findings are not new. They can be read from this article: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/logic-ontology/ . Also Carnap's "Überwindung" touches the issue, but Carnap asserts that metaphysics should be discontinued because of this kind of problems, which is an exagerration. However, we place special emphasis on the concept of "nonrelativizably used predicate", which may be a new idea. Understanding the concept of "nonrelativizably used predicate" is necessary for understanding Dynamic Quality. Even though Dynamic Quality cannot be defined, the expression "Dynamic Quality" can be identified as a nonrelativizably used predicate. Ron adds: If a "nonrelativizably used predicate" is essentially the same as what is known grammatically as an "abstract noun" then you are simply trying to solve a problem that doesn't really exist with a kind of overcomplicated term that does not offer a better, more simplified, easily understandable explanation. Abstract nouns have often served up as interesting food for debate concerning east/west translation and meaning. Pictographic languages having a different etymological expression for abstract nouns and have been the source of false philosophical arguements for quite some time. Although the term "reification" has been beaten to its componant atoms on this forum try exploring that term as well. I think if you dig a bit it will save you alot of time trying to re-invent the wheel in your work. It just may help you catch a bubble or two. . . Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org/md/archives.html
