Re: Three Dog Problems

From: patty (pattyNO_at_SPAMicyberspace.net)
Date: 10/26/04 

Date: Tue, 26 Oct 2004 18:47:08 GMT

David Longley wrote:

> In article <vagfd.314846$D%.22921@attbi_s51>, patty
> <pattyNO@SPAMicyberspace.net> writes
>
>> The Sophist wrote:
>>
>>> David Longley wrote:
>>>
>>>> The problem is that it never did die, it was completed or
>>>> transformed into enlightened empiricism where epistemology was
>>>> naturalised as empirical behavioural science. Popper liked to make
>>>> out that he killed logical positivism, but he didn't, he just ran a
>>>> noisy side show. Ayer didn't help matters either by telling
>>>> everyone what was wrong with Logical Positivism. The fact is that
>>>> logical positivism was completed by Quine, largely through "Two
>>>> Dogmas of Empiricism" and "Word and Object" and he did that by
>>>> criticising some of the dogmas which his close friend Carnap had
>>>> poached from the early Wittgenstein. The real heir to all of this
>>>> was, in fact Skinner (aided and abetted by Quine) and that leads one
>>>> to applied work or politics.
>>>
>>> I must dispute one or two details of this version of history.
>>> Carnap did not poach much of anything from Wittgenstein (Schlick was
>>> the one who Wittgenstein heavily influenced). And Quine did not
>>> successfully criticize much in Carnap. Naturalized epistemology,
>>> and what Quine's followers have done with it, would in fact
>>> constitute part of what I criticized as the nonsense of the
>>> post-positivist period.
>>>
>>
>> FYI you're arguing with a true believer. You have as much chance of
>> making a point against Quine as you have in convincing the Pope to
>> reject Catholicism. Longley will not even examine your arguments,
>> even if you are a eminent contemporary logician like Chris Menzel
>> <http://philebus.tamu.edu/~cmenzel/vita.html>. Check out this
>> exchange if you doubt it:

<http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=slrncn20rg.d6.cmenzel%40philebus.tamu.edu>

>> But what the heck, give it a try, my heart would leap for joy should
>> you make the tiniest progress :)
>>
>> patty
>
>
> There are many who argue that the criticisms of intensionalism are
> flawed. What do you expect?

That you would engage their arguments demonstrating a comprehension.
Please refer to One-Sided vs Two-Sided Arguments:
The Social Animal - Elliot Aronson - 8th Edition 1999
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0716733129/>.
You can read the pertinent passage here:
<http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=vt49og3usfsbda%40corp.supernews.com>

> They want to keep the game going. What you
> and others who take this line in defence of mentalism do not appreciate
> is what the expose of the vacuousness of intensional logic was. It was
> an explication of a problem.

What i get from contemporary logicians like Menzel is that the
*mechanism* of intensional logics and modal logics work. But all logic
is vacuous, as you no doubt know. Logic becomes useful, only when it is
applied - it's variables interpreted into the world. When we look to
apply logic, what do we find that we cannot ignore ? We find
boundaries, where inside one boundary our marks refer, and outside them
they do not; and this is especially true where human behavior is
involved. This is unavoidable, it cannot be wished away by sweeping
one's hand and assuming some overriding extensionality.

> Sticking band-aids on it through talk of
> "genuine names" and "rigid designators" just won't cut it. The people
> who do this are academics who have no grasp of science. The exorcism of
> intensions is fundamental to science. No to see that is not to see what
> science depends on.

Well the physical sciences certainly do strive to discover truths
independent of different reference frames. In that domain Quine's
tirade against properties is a tempest in a tea cup. A property of an
object *is* just a reference to the value of a test in some reference
frame. The identity of the test in-situ rests on just as firm a
standing as the identity of the object. We can logically quantify over
either in observation sentences.

When we study human behavior things get a bit dicier. Naturalized
Epistemology (NE) and the EAB comprise a web of belief. I do not
criticize that web. But i do point out that it contains its own
assumptions. Relative to what is outside those assumptions it is an
intension. There simply *is* no place for you to stand where you can
avoid intension.

> If they were not able to come up with their
> epicycles, the modal, intensional logicians and cognitive scientists
> would have to shut up shop. Do you not understand the scope of the
> criticism? It reduces vast areas of academia to bosh or literature.
>

I understand that you have been saying that repeatedly and it would be
interesting to study the frequencies and conditions under which you emit
that behavior. Does emitting that behavior interfere with other
important aspects of your life?

> That you cite the very sorts of people that promulgate metaphysics at
> the expense of science and reason should tell you something - it tells
> me you're like Zick and your reference to other metaphysicians just
> shows that there are more verbally adroit or eloquent Zicks around
> elsewhere. This is why pragmatic utility is so critical, and why so

What does the EAB tell us about your *not discriminating* between a Zizk
and a Menzel ?

> much of "AI" is hot air.

Since AI does not seem to exist at the moment, the field is
understandably very speculative, so there is a measured truth to that
clause. But you have unilaterally redefined "AI" to refer to something
  other than those who peruse it. One wonders about your justification
for introducing such a confusion. You could, after all, have just
coined another term to talk about your "AI". Apparently substitution
salva verite is not all that important to you after all.

> You should ask yourself *why* your "heart would leap for joy should you
> make the tiniest progress" in that direction.
>

Well if i were to matriculate in the EAB and NE, i would be useless as
its protagonist. Can you stand outside of those disciplines and that
web of belief and examine their assumptions ? I still can.

> You really are persistently behaving like an ignorant or pathological
> idiot.

Actually i should not have responded to this post. Maybe you remember
why, maybe not. But i did anyway. I am changing my intentional state,
as a girl this is permitted, now i don't respond where you are just
totally completely repetitive - since i don't want to encourage, or get
caught up myself, in that behavior.

Now there is a good example of the vacuousness of generating
rationalizations of behavior. oh well ...

patty

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