Re: Coextensive properties?

From: patty (pattyNO_at_SPAMicyberspace.net)
Date: 10/17/04 

Date: Sun, 17 Oct 2004 23:49:17 GMT

Pierre-Normand Houle wrote:
> "patty" <pattyNO@SPAMicyberspace.net> wrote in message
>
>
>>But i still don't see Quine's real point. Again, suppose we collect our
>>measurements as {(C,(x,P)), ...} where C is the context of the
>>measurements including the particular instruments, the setting of the
>>measurements, and the agents doing the inquiry and their assumptions.
>>The the pairs (x,P) are certainly intensional to their Cs ... iow, they
>>are relative to them. Those same pairs do not become any more or less
>>intensional if we label them "x is member of class P" as opposed to "x
>>has property P".
>
>
> I gather from Francois Recanati, in his _Literal Meaning_, that Quine
> indeed once used a device that he calls a derelativization operator ("Der")
> which reduces by one the adicity of an n places predicate by existentially
> quantifying on one single argument. (Recanati cites Quine's Selected Logic
> Papers, p. 227, but I haven't looked it up) I suppose you could thus use
> Quine's "Der" operator to reduce a two place predicate such as ". is taken
> to have property P in particular (token) context ..." to the single place
> predicate (or "property") "There has occurred (or will occur) some particular
> context C such that the object ... was (or will be) taken to have property P
> in this context. This was how I understood your suggestion above. But
> I think it only seems to work because you really start with an extensional
> conception of properties.
>
> The problem is that your definition of "property P" or "class P" clearly
> Does not deliver the extension of property P as understood by a property
> realist. It rather looks equivalent to ". has once been judged to be P by
> somebody once performing the appropriate measurement (or observation)"
> And, obviously, many such things do not have property P. And also, of course,
> many things having property P have not been and never will be judged
> or measured by anybody to be P.
>
> Maybe I can go a bit further along your suggestion and propose another
> "relativized intensional" definition of the "... has property P" predicate.
> This would be in the spirit of Putnam's (Pierce inspired) internal realism,
> which I do not endorse, but which might do as an illustration. And then
> let's see if your trick can remove intensions.
>
> The modified definition (D1) is : "... would be judged to have property
> P by an observer who, were he to have had access to that object, would
> have used observation methods in conformity with the norms that ought
> to be established at the end of the scientific enquiry regarding property P."
>
> But we must now explicitly relativize this before we can apply the "Der"
> operator to get a proper extensional definition. And it will be a bit
> complicated to apply "Der" repeatedly on this definition to "de-intensionalize"
> it, so lets abbreviate it to (D2) "... would be judged to have property
> P by an ideal observer who would conform to all clauses of D1." (And then
> you can even vary D1 to conform to whatever strictures you believe
> property realists ought rather to insist on.) Properly relativized, D2 would
> become something like D2R : "... would be judged, in possible particular
> context ..., to have property P by ideal observer ... who would happen to
> conform to all clauses of D1." And now apply "Der" twice to get
> D2Ext : "There exists a possible observer O and possible context C such that
> O in C would judge . to be P while conforming to D1." Now, even supposing
> that the "conforming to D1 clause" is well behaved (i.e. not intensional,)
> we have clearly failed. The "property" (one place predicate) D2Ext is
> intensional through and through because of the double occurrence of
> the "possibility" operator. But this is required and ineliminable,
> I think, because of the double normativity constraint of the rationality
> of the observer and normalcy of the observational context (including the
> "well" functioning of instruments).
>

I miss your point in that i happily acknowledge that a property is an
intension. I am not trying to convert the one into the other by some
syntactic transformation. Rather i am stating a (perhaps new?) concept
  of the identity of a property.

For a scientist a property is the result of execution of a test in some
contextual setting. The variable recorded in the observation sentence
is identified with the result of the test. Different tests in different
settings may yield different extensions. The property is identical when
(1) the result of the test is identical, (2) the test mechanism is
identical, (3) and the setting is identical (or at least similar enough
to satisfy the problem at hand). Any modality associated with the
property is some part of either the test or its contextual setting. If
the setting changes, then the property is a different property. Hold the
test and its setting constant and you will find the same extension time
and again, else you lab assistant has made an error. Is that not one of
the assumptions underpinning the scientific method ?

Let me put his in a logical manner. If i would assert that (there
exists x (Px)) you would not complain of some problem with the identity
of the x's or their ontological status. Then why would you have any
more of a problem with my saying (there exist P (Px)), where P is the
result of using a physical instrument in a specified context. Why would
you have problems with the identity of the one, and not of the other?

Here is a example: consider
<http://www.maxiaids.com/store/prodView_LgImage.asp?idProduct=2515> to
be the instrument-C. Now i can make two different statements of the
same illative force:

  There exists a surface, on which surface instrument-C says red.
  There exists an instrument, which instrument on a surface says red.

In the first sentence we quantify over surfaces, in the second we
quantify over instruments. We have no more problem with the identify of
instruments in their usage contexts than we have with objects against
their backgrounds.

>
>>In your other post you say:
>>
>> > It makes differences in modal contexts. You can say : This car might
>> > not have been red (it might have been painted blue instead.) That is
>> > to say : that *very* car might not have had the *very* property red.
>> > But you can not say : This car (which belongs in the "red" class)
>> > might not have belonged to it. That is, you can not say : This *very*
>> > car might not have belonged to that *very* class. That is a logical
>> > contradiction. A definite class could not have had different members.
>> > That would necessarily have been a different class.
>>
>>When you talk of these cars as a class you leave unspecified how they
>>came to be put in their class;
>
>
> Yes, that's the whole point if classes are not individuated by intensions.
> The class of all free nonionized atoms having atomic number 1 might be the
> same as the class of all free nonionized atoms possessing one electron.
> But those two intensions correspond to two distinct properties.
>

Yes, they correspond to distinctly different tests - both tests happen
to yield the same extension. The identity of the property rests with
the identity of the test. The identity of the class rests with the
identity of the extension. If you hold (as you and Quine appear to do)
that i *must* establish the identity of the property by the identity of
the extension, they you have damed properties by virtue of you authority
to legislate that definition. Well, I protest your authority to so
legislate.

>
>>but when you talk of their property
>>redness you specify that they could have been painted red or not. You
>>have changed the context of the example and thereby have come up with a
>>difference. But it is the change of context that made the difference.
>>
>>Can you keep the modal context constant between using "class" as opposed
>>to using "property" and still make a difference ?
>
>
> No, I can't keep the modal context constant. But the context is not
> external to the evaluation of the concepts (classes and properties.)
> Rather, is just comes with them! "Property" is an irrreductively modal notion
> and "class" is not. An object that has a property could have been deprived
> of it.

Right!

> (Unless the property is essential to this object: a gold atom could not
> have had an atomic number different than the one it has. But this does not
> affect the point about extensions. Some bearers might not have existed) So,
> the extension of the predicate ". has property P" could have been different
> than it in fact is. But a class could not have had different members than the
> ones it in fact has.

Right !

>
>> > But we hold (not
>> > Quine, but realists about properties) that a definite objects might
>> > have had definite properties contrary to the ones it in fact has.
>>
>>Well i think i am a realist about properties, and i think you are too.
>>(Are you?)
>
>
> Yes.
>

Well i want to revise my stance here after browsing the web. I am not a
property realist in the sense that Cynthia Macdonald characterizes them
in "Tropes and Other Things":

   "in addition to individual, concrete particular things,
   there are properties, or universals"

I don't see any need to invoke such Platonic properties. Rather i am a
realist in the sense that a property of an object is nothing more nor
less than the result of some concrete particular event of some concrete
particular instrument in some particular context.

>>But i do not "hold that a definite object might have had a
>>definite property contrary to the ones it in fact has".
>
>
> Do you mean that your car could not have been painted another color? That
> it would then have been another car? What then if you do paint it another
> color. Does it eo ipso become a different car?
>

Ok, on closer reading of your words i will change my story. My car
could have been painted yellow; but then in that context my color
detector above would have *said* "yellow".

>
>>I do, however,
>>hold that a object might have had a property that i did not measure
>>correctly, or that i did not infer correctly. Iow - i do not hold my
>>senses, or my assumptions, or my logic to be infallible. Does Quine say
>>i must ?
>
>
> I am unsure what Quine would say. Maybe he would say that you sometimes
> revise your assumptions to better accommodate new data. This would be a case
> of your changing your dispositions to use certain sentences (observation
> sentences, theoretical hypothesis, etc.) in reasoning--a matter of
> (covert verbal) behavior modification. (Again, I am not with Quine
> on this, but I am just trying my best to get him right.) But there
> would be no objective properties which good (scientific) behavior tracks.
> Rather, good predictive behavior group observational data in useful
> classes--nothing objective here apart from better of worse predictive
> success.
>

Well i too am trying to get him right. In Chapter 46 of "Methods of
Logic" Quine holds forth more clearly than in the Quiddity that started
this thread:

""
... there [is not] any call to distinguish classes from properties
except on one point: classes are extensional. What this means is that
they are counted identical when they have the same members. Properties,
such as that of having a heart and that of having kidneys, may be
properties of all the same individuals and yet be distinguished. What
does make for identity of properties is not well defined; we are apt to
fobbed off with loose talk of essence versus accident, necessity versus
contingency, or the like. So despite the fact that 'property' or
'attribute' is more useful in everyday parlance than 'class', I favor
the latter.
""

By my interpretation, his complaint is the issue of identity. Classes
are identical when the extensions of their objects are the same. Our
ontological commitment to objects being held without question. But as a
scientist my ontological commitment is just as strong to my instruments
and their correct usage in context. When the same instruments are used
in the same context, the resultant measurements are the same; and we
*do* have a well defined concept of identical properties. Again i
challenge anyone to hold the instruments and their context of usage
constant and point to a difference in consequence between an observation
sentence of the form "x is a member of class C" and one of the form "x
has a property P".

Thanks, to both you and Chris for your dialog. I hope that we can
continue it until we are satisfied with a consensus.

patty

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