The statement there is something Jack and Jill both are, begins not with.. there is a something, like a dog... but simply with there is something. If it began with there is a something, thus using something as a common noun, one might well look for a common noun, such as property, to pinpoint just what sort of something there is of which Jack and Jill both are. This should all sound like logical nonsense by now.. Some thing is not a common noun and it is incorrect therefore to introduce property as equivalent to something which an object is or is not. The term property has as a common noun, the form is a property. Unless something is to be construed as a common noun, the supposed equivalent has the form is something of which an object is or is not, so tall is something of which an object is or is not, and not tall is a something of which an object is or is not. Only if the expression something of which an object is or is not is a common noun expression, which it is not, would it be correct to introduce the common noun property as its stipulate equivalent. In short, this way of introducing the term property is simply a mistake... even then, the property tall is something that they have rather than something they are in the sense of something is a dog, it has the property of being white. Sellars is saying that we are trading non linguistic universals for linguistic universals, and the statements are not about English words... People will say the word triangular is just an abstract entity as triangularity, whereas the nominalistic gain is not the term triangular as much singular term as triangularity, and adjective as much a common noun as quality.. his answer is triangular, the word is not a singular term, but is a common noun, and the gain that arises that we can hope to equate with something like.. For all x if x is triangular then x is an adjective... this leads to his dot quotes in naming and saying... To know how to use singular terms ending in ity, is to know that they are formed from adjectives. Well to know how to use the common noun quality is to roughly know that it is well formed singular sentences are of the form blank is a quality when the blank is appropriately filled by an abstract noun. This view is really about the pragmatics, hes saying something like if you know how to use the adjective is triangular, then just by knowing how to use that, you already know how to do everything you need to know how to do to use triangularity. There isnt any surplus over being able to use the adjective thats required to use that noun.. Now this is talking about the relation of sufficiency between abilities or capacities to use things. And the question of which conclusions you should draw from that about the semantics, about what they refer to, about what they mean, thats another matter.Sellars didnt get that far. He never got a conceptual apparatus to be clear about the relation between pragmatic dependence and the semantics. Weve now located a difference between material and formal modes of speech which enables us to see that they have the same force, thats a pragmatic notion, Freges notion of what youre doing when you are making a speech act, asserting or something else. How material and formal modes of speech could have the same force, that is you could be doing the same thing in saying triangularity is a property and in saying the word triangular is an adjective, youre doing the same thing... now what hes going to do is try to figure out what youre saying when you do the speech act, bc what youre saying is something different. How they can have the same force without one being a simple rewriting of the other, without them being inter-translatable with each other.. they dont say the same thing but they convey the same thing, thats a pragmatic matter. For while it would be incorrect to say that blank is triangular is a particular gappy state of affairs, that the other statement is a mere rewriting of blank is triangular in English is a singular term gappy sentence. Well that would be wrong. It is a reasonable next step in the direction of the truth to interpret it as a rewriting that presupposes that the writer and reader are able to use as well as mention sentences of the form blank is triangular. On his treatment of propositions and his treatment of properties.. He gives a metalinguistic rewriting of property talk, saying that rewriting doesnt preserve what is said but it preserves what youre doing in saying it, what youre committing yourself to, and to have the abilities to use the formal mode expressions is already to have the abilities to use the material mode expression, and further more the abilities to use the ground level adjectives is all you need for the rewriting.. but propositions, that P versions, he says we should think of in terms of what were doing when we say it is true that P, and that we should understand in terms of what were doing when we make an inference from that P is true to P.. so the whole content of that P, is going to be made intelligible in terms of the locutions it is true that P, and those are going to be understood in terms of what youre doing by saying that, and thats to move from the use of the expression on the surface seems to be referring to a proposition and attributing a property of truth to it, what youre doing is to be made intelligible in terms of your commitment to the pattern of inference from it is true that P, to the assertion that P... were to understand proposition talk as to what you are doing in inferring and asserting.. so one question is what is the relation between the pragmatic account of proposition talk, and the talk of properties, the metalinguistic rewriting about the claims of properties, exactly how do they fit together, thats the question. Addressing it has to involve the relationship between semantic vocabularies, metalanguages in which you say what someone has said, and pragmatic meta-vocabularies, metalanguages that you use to say what someone is doing when they say that, for instance, committing themselves to the priority of an inference. Robert Brandum agrees with metalinguistic expressivists about logical/modal/deontic normative/ and intentional vocabulary... except hes not nominalisitic including his ontology vocabulary, about property and fact, as playing these kind of metalinguistic roles.. he gets off the bus with Wittgenstein was right about the world of facts, the world of objects with properties, and to say that is not to say anything metalinguistic in the way to talk about these other things is. He thinks that the world really does consists of objects, facts about the objects, and laws relating the facts and the properties that articulate those facts... he also thinks that you cant in principle understand the concept object, except in a context that includes talk about using singular terms to refer to objects. You cant make sense of the concept fact, except in a context that includes asserting declarative sentences. So hes thinking of singular terms as a syntactic category and of the referring as a pragmatic matter of the use of such expressions. And similarly for declarative sentence, syntactic category vs. Asserting, which is pragmatic, and similarly for law and modally qualified conditionals as the syntactic category, and inferring as the pragmatic category. But, he thinks of that as a reciprocal sense dependence relation, you also cant understand declarative sentences and asserting except in the context in which you are talking facts, and similarly for the notion for singular term and referring and modally qualified conditionals and inferring. Even tho they are both starting from similar observations that ability to use the term property and the ability to use predicates are two sides of one coin, you cant have the one without having the other.. RB wouldnt say that making the claim about the predicates and about the properties have the same force, he wouldnt say youre doing the same thing, more that they are reciprocally sense dependent... There is an important relationship between the ability to use an adjective and grasp of the concept property. They are intimately intertwined, they arent just the same abilities however, bc they are the abilities to say different things.
Posted on: Thu, 06 Mar 2014 21:46:35 +0000
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