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The metaphysical presuppositions of formal logic

edwardfeser.blogspot.com

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Re: The metaphysical presuppositions of formal logic

#61

Post by dragonwriter »

ukj wrote: post #55
the_af wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't take an explicit argument, but time is definitely an implicit argument of your function; how else do you think the function is implemented?

We are talking about function declaration not implementation, right? The expression A = A can be trivially re-written in another notation as equal(A,A) . The reason you don't question the implementation of the equal() function is because it's declared as being true however it's implemented. So, I declare f() != f() as being true. I also declare that f() takes no arguments. All I am doing is translating (transpiling?)…

> All I am doing is translating (transpiling?) English into Ruby.

Incorrectly.

> "Now is not now" => "Time.now != Time.now"

Sure, “Now (pointedly looks at watch) is not now (pointedly looks at watch)” is true, and the equivalent of the Ruby. Ruby expressions lack the implicit simultaneity that English sentences wthout some contextual signal of explicit time dependency have, and your mistranslation ignores this.

Re: The metaphysical presuppositions of formal logic

#62

Post by BeeBoBub »

Cybotron5000 wrote: post #53

Edward Feser doesn’t seem to me to be genuinely interested in challenging his own presuppositions through metaphysics or philosophy, or in communicating the work of others to a wider audience. If the posts that appear on this site are anything to go by, he seems to specialize in a specious species of polemic and obfuscation designed solely to justify and promulgate his political and religious views. If it lends a sen…

Is it wrong to be opinionated? Feser quickly remarks on a problem of math: some mathematical constructs reflect the system of math more than reality. If your philosophy never touches the political, the reality, aren’t you merely creating a system of reasoning for its own sake?

Moreover, does he need to challenge his own presuppositions? We can do that!

Re: The metaphysical presuppositions of formal logic

#63

Post by benlivengood »

Essentialists are map-makers eternally searching for a map that exactly matches the territory, and will forever be disappointed.

Some of the metaphysical problems with logic that the article tries to approach do exist, but in my opinion they are the domain of decision theory, not philosophy.

Re: The metaphysical presuppositions of formal logic

#64

Post by Cybotron5000 »

BeeBoBub wrote: post #62
Cybotron5000 wrote: post #53

Edward Feser doesn’t seem to me to be genuinely interested in challenging his own presuppositions through metaphysics or philosophy, or in communicating the work of others to a wider audience. If the posts that appear on this site are anything to go by, he seems to specialize in a specious species of polemic and obfuscation designed solely to justify and promulgate his political and religious views. If it lends a sen…

Is it wrong to be opinionated? Feser quickly remarks on a problem of math: some mathematical constructs reflect the system of math more than reality. If your philosophy never touches the political, the reality, aren’t you merely creating a system of reasoning for its own sake? Moreover, does he need to challenge his own presuppositions? We can do that!

I think that sometimes being overly opinionated and incapable of changing your mind is potentially harmful to others, yes… Is it not potentially dangerous to advocate for various political realities based solely on unexamined/individual opinion-based constructs? Maybe I am wrong, though… I’m curious what you think of the ideas in this article?: https://aphilosopher.drmcl.com/2007/08/26/is-philosophy-just...

Re: The metaphysical presuppositions of formal logic

#65

Post by ukj »

dragonwriter wrote: post #61
ukj wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are talking about function declaration not implementation, right? The expression A = A can be trivially re-written in another notation as equal(A,A) . The reason you don't question the implementation of the equal() function is because it's declared as being true however it's implemented. So, I declare f() != f() as being true. I also declare that f() takes no arguments. All I am doing is translating (transpiling?)…

> All I am doing is translating (transpiling?) English into Ruby. Incorrectly. > "Now is not now" => "Time.now != Time.now" Sure, “Now (pointedly looks at watch) is not now (pointedly looks at watch)” is true, and the equivalent of the Ruby. Ruby expressions lack the implicit simultaneity that English sentences wthout some contextual signal of explicit time dependency have, and your mistranslation ignores this.

Where is the "explicit simultinaity" in looking at your watch twice?

The English and Ruby terms map 1:1.

Now(Time.now) is not(!=) Now (Time.now)

Why do you call the correct "incorrect"?

Re: The metaphysical presuppositions of formal logic

#66

Post by dragonwriter »

ukj wrote: post #65
dragonwriter wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All I am doing is translating (transpiling?) English into Ruby. Incorrectly. > "Now is not now" => "Time.now != Time.now" Sure, “Now (pointedly looks at watch) is not now (pointedly looks at watch)” is true, and the equivalent of the Ruby. Ruby expressions lack the implicit simultaneity that English sentences wthout some contextual signal of explicit time dependency have, and your mistranslation ignores this.

Where is the "explicit simultinaity" in looking at your watch twice? The English and Ruby terms map 1:1. Now(Time.now) is not(!=) Now (Time.now) Why do you call the correct "incorrect"?

> Where is the "explicit simultinaity" in looking at your watch twice?

Nowhere; that's the contextual signal that defeats the implicit simultaneity the English sentence would have without that body language.

Re: The metaphysical presuppositions of formal logic

#67

Post by ukj »

dragonwriter wrote: post #66
ukj wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where is the "explicit simultinaity" in looking at your watch twice? The English and Ruby terms map 1:1. Now(Time.now) is not(!=) Now (Time.now) Why do you call the correct "incorrect"?

> Where is the "explicit simultinaity" in looking at your watch twice? Nowhere; that's the contextual signal that defeats the implicit simultaneity the English sentence would have without that body language.

So you looked at your watch twice at the same time?

The English sentence "Now is not Now" describes my thought process (1st person view), not my body language (3rd person view).

My thought process occurs over time. Exactly like the Ruby process.

Re: The metaphysical presuppositions of formal logic

#68

Post by Cybotron5000 »

pfortuny wrote: post #56
Cybotron5000 wrote: post #53

Edward Feser doesn’t seem to me to be genuinely interested in challenging his own presuppositions through metaphysics or philosophy, or in communicating the work of others to a wider audience. If the posts that appear on this site are anything to go by, he seems to specialize in a specious species of polemic and obfuscation designed solely to justify and promulgate his political and religious views. If it lends a sen…

So you’ve just ad-hominemed him in a suspiciously suspect subscribed text. And by sheer coincidence, catholicism. Great.

…catholic with a small ‘c’: https://www.thefreedictionary.com/catholic (…sorry I couldn’t resist the pun…). Personally I think there have been many wondrous, uplifting and glorious achievements of the Catholic church/its followers …and, I’m sure you would agree, some not so much, as is the case with many human institutions… What is it I’m subscribed to? Edward Feser may be a wonderful fellow in person for all I know - I would like to think at least that he is a decent, upstanding, law-abiding, moral etc. citizen - he certainly comes across as erudite and indefatigable in his writing… I just get the feeling that the two blog posts I have read of his that have been posted on this site were both designed solely to reinforce his particular presuppositions? Perhaps I am judging him unfairly - would you recommend something else of his that I should read instead? As I say, if his philosophy/faith works for him, gives him meaning and hope and joy etc. and he genuinely believes in those ideas, I wish him all the best… I worry a little about (perhaps less enlightened) people wanting to apply those ideas to society at large though... You must surely also be aware of examples from history where things have not gone so well? (not least for Catholics at various points in time - incl. ancestors of my own). What do you think?

Re: The metaphysical presuppositions of formal logic

#69

Post by ukj »

dragonwriter wrote: post #57
ukj wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are talking about a different function. The function I am talking about doesn't take any arguments. [1] pry(main)> Time.now(1) ArgumentError: wrong number of arguments (given 1, expected 0)

> The function I am talking about doesn't take any arguments. All impure functions have an implicit dependency on (some subset of) the state of the universe when they execute; in mathematics and logic something with this kind of dependency is typically noted by parameterizing it by time when the actual precise nature of the dependency is outside of the scope of the immediate analysis (because a dependency on the stat…

You know what the state of the universe is when you do logic?

Tell us more! I didn't believe in omniscience until now.

Time.now(t1) and Time.now(t2) is meaningless in this context because t1 and t2 are unbound variables. What are you passing to your function? Where is it coming from?

My function says you are overlooking something.

  [1] pry(main)> Time.now(t1)
  NameError: undefined local variable or method `t1' for main:Object from (pry):1:in `__pry__'
  [2] pry(main)> Time.now(1)
  ArgumentError: wrong number of arguments (given 1, expected 0) from (pry):2:in `now'

Re: The metaphysical presuppositions of formal logic

#70

Post by Cybotron5000 »

Cybotron5000 wrote: post #64
BeeBoBub wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it wrong to be opinionated? Feser quickly remarks on a problem of math: some mathematical constructs reflect the system of math more than reality. If your philosophy never touches the political, the reality, aren’t you merely creating a system of reasoning for its own sake? Moreover, does he need to challenge his own presuppositions? We can do that!

I think that sometimes being overly opinionated and incapable of changing your mind is potentially harmful to others, yes… Is it not potentially dangerous to advocate for various political realities based solely on unexamined/individual opinion-based constructs? Maybe I am wrong, though… I’m curious what you think of the ideas in this article?: https://aphilosopher.drmcl.com/2007/08/26/is-philosophy-just...

…and yes I think that challenging one’s suppositions ought to be the first task of any aspiring philosopher. Isn’t that the whole idea?
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