Re: Tautologies and Empirical Truth
From: Lester Zick (lesterDELzick_at_worldnet.att.net)
Date: 10/28/04
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Date: Thu, 28 Oct 2004 22:32:48 GMT
On Thu, 28 Oct 2004 20:09:09 GMT, patty <pattyNO@SPAMicyberspace.net>
in comp.ai.philosophy wrote:
>Lester Zick wrote:
>> On Thu, 28 Oct 2004 17:15:07 GMT, patty <pattyNO@SPAMicyberspace.net>
>> in comp.ai.philosophy wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Lester Zick wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>On Wed, 27 Oct 2004 22:22:32 GMT, "Stephen Harris"
>>>><cyberguard1048-usenet@yahoo.com> in comp.ai.philosophy wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>"Lester Zick" <lesterDELzick@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
>>>>>news:4180c3a7.71190262@netnews.att.net...
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>On Wed, 27 Oct 2004 17:04:19 -0400, Wolf Kirchmeir
>>>>>><wwolfkir@sympatico.ca> in comp.ai.philosophy wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>Lester Zick wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Tautologies and Empirical Truth
>>>>>>>> --------------
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>In a frank discussion with Wolf Kirchmeir yesterday concerning whether
>>>>>>>>tautologies constitute empirical evidence he took occasion to remind
>>>>>>>>me quite candidly that tautologies are always true. And the moral he
>>>>>>>>drew from this was that tautological truths can't be empirical because
>>>>>>>>empirical observations are always problematic and tautologies are not.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>Then I got to pondering. It seemed a shame to have something that was
>>>>>>>>always true and not be able to draw some useful information from it.
>>>>>>>>Here was this beacon of universal truth, and we had no use for it. I
>>>>>>>>understood that philosophers and scientists consider tautologies
>>>>>>>>useless despite their universal truth. However, I decided that the
>>>>>>>>final chapter on usefullness of the tautology had yet to be written.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>"Always true" does not mean "universal truth."
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Aw, c'mon, Wolf, you're quibbling. If something is always true, it's
>>>>>>true for all things everywhere at all times. If it's not true for all
>>>>>>things everywhere, it's not true all the time. Totally irrelevant.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Regards - Lester
>>>>>
>>>>>I am more sympathetic to Wolf's original point, which was something
>>>>>which is logically/tautologically true does not have an empircal (physical
>>>>>reality) implication. Of course if the premise is true about reality then
>>>>>the argument is called sound and then has an actual implication about
>>>>>reality, because you are essentially just stating a fact about reality.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>So statements about reality which are true constitutes a sound
>>>>argument? A mere statement doesn't constitute an argument at all.
>>>>
>>>>I can appreciate where your sympathies lie, Stephen, but where does
>>>>your reason lie?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>The earth is roughly round because the surface always loosely fits a curve,
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>Which may be true but is hardly relevant to tautologies which
>>>>universally exclude alternatives. Observations like "a bachelor is
>>>>unmarried" or "the earth is round because it loosely fits a sphere"
>>>>are not tautologies, they're statements of definition.
>>>>
>>>>To make them tautologies you would have to add alternatives:
>>>>
>>>>"A bachelor is either married or unmarried"
>>>>
>>>>"The earth is either round or not round because it fits a sphere"
>>>>
>>>>in which cases the alternatives are self contradictory.
>>>>
>>>>Regards - Lester
>>>
>>>Yes, a sentence like "an unmarried man (bachalor) is either married or
>>>unmarried" is certainly self contradictory, but that is not our point.
>>>The point is that, one way or the other, that sentence is not about the
>>>world. It is about the language in which we are talking. That is the
>>>point that Kant, and Wolf, and Stephen, and i (but not Quine) have been
>>>trying to get you to acknowledge. If you at least acknowledge that
>>>(fact?) then perhaps we can get beyond this confusion and make some
>>>progress.
>>
>>
>> The reason I don't acknowledge that position, patty, is because it's
>> incorrect. The point that you, Kant, Wolf, and Stephan are making
>> (assuming they are all making it) is about the world as much as the
>> language they make it about is about the world. My language is about
>> the world. I can't speak for others. If their language is not about
>> the world then I suggest they stop using it and find some substitute.
>>
>> Regards - Lester
>
>Well in a sense we are arguing past each other in this thread. It just
>dawned on me that you have already acknowledged this point with your
>words "tautoligies in themselves are not problematic and cannot
>represent empirical observations".
I'm kinda in agreement here except that the idea is that tautologies
are not empirical observations; however, empirical observations are
parts of tautologies. They have to be or they wouldn't be problematic
and couldn't be true.
> Please translate "cannot represent
>empirical observations" into "are not about the world". In other words
>the world would be just the same, whether the statements were true or
>false.
Well, patty, tautologies, as Wolf pointed out, are always true. The
parts of tautologies can be true or not and are what we mean by the
term empirical. The parts of tautologies are about the world in the
sense of being empirical. If you wanted to go the conventional route,
I could say that we can certainly test the parts of mathematical
tautologies empirically just as we do any observation. However, this
is rendered unnecessary because we can test math observations in terms
of the self contradiction of tautological alternatives.
>It seems to me that in your paragraph above you include our language in
>the world - you lump those two separate domains together - and thereby
>end up saying, truthfully i might add, that we are all talking about the
>world or we are just flapping our lips.
Exactly.
> But our point, and Kant's, was
>to draw the distinction, and not to deny it. Please ack that if you
>can, and we can happily put this thread to bed.
Well, I can certainly ack the first point and the second to the extent
that there is a distinction between language and the material world.
However, this is only a logical distinction we draw because we can
assign different properties the same way we can distinguish between
blue cars and red skies. It's all about the world just as tautologies
are all about the world. It's merely a question of what about the
world various capacities and tautologies are all about and not whether
the world and reality are all about tautologies. Otherwise empirical
observations could not be true and would not be problematic.
Regards - Lester
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