tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8042142443470259188.post4882525738868047131..comments2023-05-13T07:41:26.217-05:00Comments on SOH-Dan: I like C.I. LewisDaniel Lindquisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05443116324301716578noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8042142443470259188.post-29884705379598459742008-11-07T03:11:00.000-06:002008-11-07T03:11:00.000-06:00What book is "Murphey's book"?Quine's beef with mo...What book is "Murphey's book"?<BR/><BR/>Quine's beef with modal logic is pretty clearly laid out in "Reference and Modality": Lewis's version of it just doesn't work. It allows substitution of co-extensive terms in what is supposed to be an intensional context (thus allowing valid inference from "Necessarily, four and five make nine" to "Necessarily, there are nine planets (counting Pluto)"). Which is as counterintuitive a result as you could ask for. (Quine rejects post-Kripke modal logic because he doesn't go in for "possible worlds"-talk, and thinks that's the only way anyone's given to avoid the sort of criticisms he made in "Reference and Modality". See <A HREF="http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/~arche/old/pages/papers/JD-EJPRevised.pdf" REL="nofollow">this article</A> for a more substantive Quinean criticism of post-Kripke/David Lewis talk of <I>de re</I> modalities than any I'm aware of Quine giving.)<BR/><BR/>I agree that Lewis's logic avoids a lot of the weirdness that extensional logics run up against when applied to natural language, but I think it's worth noting that Lewis's logic allows weird results, too (or at least his strict conditional does -- everything still implies all logical truths for example, and contradictions imply everything, as do any conditionals with impossible antecedents). Graham Priest's "Introduction to Non-Classical Logic" is good for highlighting things like this; by the end of the book it seems pretty clear that <I>no</I> existing logic does a perfectly smooth job at capturing all and only those patterns of inference which we want to endorse in natural language. (Some relevant logics seem to come pretty damn close, but it comes at the expense of being horribly unwieldy.)Daniel Lindquisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05443116324301716578noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8042142443470259188.post-85601545812264115092008-11-06T05:16:00.000-06:002008-11-06T05:16:00.000-06:00Just bumped to your blog, a late reply then. MWO i...Just bumped to your blog, a late reply then. MWO is essentially an expansion on the themes presented in "The Pragmatic [...] A Priori". If you liked the paper, I am sure you will find MWO very rewarding. It is only in The Analysis of Knowledge and Valuation that Lewis goes deeper with the analytic/synthetic distinction.<BR/><BR/>I really liked your notions about Quine/Lewis; I am somewhat baffled about Quine's apparent hostility towards Lewis, since there seems to be so much common ground there once you scratch the surface. Especially Quine's beef with intensional logic escapes me. I understand there are some consistency issues, but as concerns natural inference and language, I feel that intensional logic, and especially Lewis' take on it, goes a long way further than any extensional one. Perhaps it is a mathematical issue; I remember reading somewhere (I think it was Murphey's book) that after "Two Dogmas", Lewis remarked that he simply does not have the mathematical firepower to answer Quine's critique. But still, even if extensionality gives one more consistency, in terms of natural inference the paradoxes it entails are, in my opinion, almost unacceptable. I wish somebody could enlighten me with this issue...Lauri Järvilehtohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08094103037754622130noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8042142443470259188.post-22452838206693437082008-04-23T11:31:00.000-05:002008-04-23T11:31:00.000-05:00I almost bought a copy of "Mind and the World Orde...I almost bought a copy of "Mind and the World Order" at the local used bookstore a few months ago, after I heard Conant mention it in his "varieties of skepticism" lectures. He seemed to be of the opinion that Lewis had a pretty nuanced position regarding the conceptual and non-conceptual, and much of what Sellars was on about was closely related to what was in Lewis originally. (I hope my memory is serving me well here.)Ahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03645057256205065473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8042142443470259188.post-4860029744130614072008-04-18T21:56:00.000-05:002008-04-18T21:56:00.000-05:00Pragmatism, or the philosophy of the pseudo-engine...Pragmatism, or the philosophy of the pseudo-engineer: "we always built this bridge like dat, and it ain't fallen down, usually, so the equations must all work, at least for now." Zealots, whether xtian, or anti-xtian, love efficaciousness.Jhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11567400697675996283noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8042142443470259188.post-40731706965920410962008-04-16T15:08:00.000-05:002008-04-16T15:08:00.000-05:00No problem, thanks for pointing to it.No problem, thanks for pointing to it.tanashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02767714629020630193noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8042142443470259188.post-53984359775095556852008-04-16T13:26:00.000-05:002008-04-16T13:26:00.000-05:00That is a fair point. I don't know why the paper i...That is a fair point. I don't know why the paper is not online; it's from 1923, I was pretty sure that was old enough for it to be public-domain. It's been reprinted pretty widely, though.<BR/><BR/>I would summarize it now, but a) I am lazy, b) there are lots of small touches that I like in the paper.Daniel Lindquisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05443116324301716578noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8042142443470259188.post-32201000441610914522008-04-16T10:07:00.000-05:002008-04-16T10:07:00.000-05:00So, we need to buy the book to learn what C.I.Lewi...So, we need to buy the book to learn what C.I.Lewis says on the issue? Do tell us, please :)tanashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02767714629020630193noreply@blogger.com