I don't think you can get a semantics (above syntax) by referring to
some hypothetical external primitive world, which btw is what I would
like to explain (away), unless you presuppose Physicalism/Materialism.
In that case you should either abandon comp (and weaker theories) or
perhaps tell me where the Universal Dovetailer Argument +
movie-graph/Occam goes wrong, as it should in that situation.
Bruno
Le 05-janv.-06, à 19:04, Brent Meeker a écrit :
> Bruno Marchal wrote:
>> Le 04-janv.-06, à 19:30, Brent Meeker a écrit :
>>> Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hi John,
>>>> I think you may have problems because you are not used neither
>>>> trained in axiomatic thinking. The idea consists in NOT defining
>>>> the objects we want to talk about, and keeping just some needed
>>>> properties from which we prove other theorem.
>>>> Let me give an example with the idea of knowledge. Many
>>>> philosophers agree that knowledge should verify the following law,
>>>> and I take it as the best definition of knowledge we can have:
>>>> 1) If I know some proposition then that proposition is true
>>>> 2) If I know some proposition then I know that I know that
>>>> proposition
>>>> 3) If I know that some proposition a entails some proposition b,
>>>> then if I know a, I will know b.
>>>
>>>
>>> But that doesn't capture meaning of "know".
>> But nobody knows or agree on the *meaning* of "know", that's was my
>> point. If *you* think it leaves something out, for a mathematician it
>> means that you agree with the definition!
>> And then you propose a stronger theory by adding 4:
>>> It leaves out 4) If I know some proposition then I have experience
>>> causally connected to the fact that makes it true. See c.f.
>>> Gettier's paradox.
>> Now, that "4" *is* problematical because it refers to a undefined
>> notion of causality, which itself can only be defined axiomatically.
>> Bruno
>
> It's undefined, and it's definition is problematic, but I don't see
> why it can *only* be defined axiomatically. ISTM that some things
> must be defined empirically (i.e. ostensively) otherwise we have only
> syntax and no semantics.
>
> Brent Meeker
>
>
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
Received on Fri Jan 06 2006 - 06:16:14 PST