• Banno
    23.1k
    And Wittgenstein's story is precisely that classical logic lacks the resources needed for such an account. (He tried.)Srap Tasmaner

    I would have said rather that he showed there was no question here - that the notion of being was not the sort of thing that might be subject to further analysis, but just the sort of thing that has to be taken as granted; that there is stuff to talk about is a fine candidate for a hinge proposition. It's much the same as presuming the bishop moves diagonally is a precursor to playing chess.

    Which is much the same as the answer given by Headgear, only far clearer.
  • Srap Tasmaner
    4.6k
    I would have said rather that he showed there was no question here - that the notion of being was not the sort of thing that might be subject to further analysis, but just the sort of thing that has to be taken as grantedBanno

    It's hard to know what to say here.

    Wittgenstein doesn't always and unconditionally give in to the temptation to say "here my spade is turned". He dissects many things other people are happy to take for granted. And some of what he says looks enough like an explanation that people take him to be advancing some doctrine or another, despite his protests to the contrary.

    He spends twenty years or so on the new project, trying over and over again to explain why there's nothing much to say, or trying not to explain it but just show that it is so. It is possible that something was going wrong there, that he was himself in a fly bottle he could not find the way out of. And the result is that those few remaining philosophers who care about Wittgenstein argue endlessly over what he meant. Why is that?
  • Banno
    23.1k
    Wittgenstein doesn't always and unconditionally give in to the temptation to say "here my spade is turned". He dissects many things other people are happy to take for granted.Srap Tasmaner

    Sure, and if there is a dissection of "being" that somehow helps, I'm for it - see Free Logic.

    I don't wish to close off the discussion, but improve it. The challenge was to clarify the notion of being in the OP.
  • Joshs
    5.2k
    that there is stuff to talk about is a fine candidate for a hinge proposition. It's much the same as presuming the bishop moves diagonally is a precursor to playing chess.Banno

    Are you suggesting that Wittgenstein begins from hinge propositions ( taking them for granted) in the way that Frege begins from formal logic?
  • Mikie
    6.1k
    .and why should we fall back to this anachronistic greek interpretation when we have better ones in our formal logic?Banno

    I'm not recommending we go back to this. The claim is that this is what permeates the western tradition. Formal logic is still very much included in this tradition.
  • Banno
    23.1k
    No.

    So far as I am aware, persistence is not a notion used in formal logic. Nor does formal logic presume that individuals persist over time.
  • Heiko
    519
    Two persons blu a baloon, this is his, and this ballon is from another person, you pup the ballons, where air goes???Nothing
    Closer to the nature of being it seems
  • Srap Tasmaner
    4.6k
    Nor does formal logic presume that individuals persist over time.Banno

    It's timeless, because it was designed for mathematics. That's why Frege's logic is missing modality too.
  • Banno
    23.1k
    It's timeless, because it was designed for mathematics.Srap Tasmaner

    Hence we have definitions of "is" (existence, being) which are not dependent on time.
  • Mikie
    6.1k
    So far as I am aware, persistence is not a notion used in formal logic. Nor does formal logic presume that individuals persist over time.Banno

    Formal logic is an abstract activity of the human being, dependent on a certain mode of a human being. Like mathematics. Formal systems do indeed presume persistence -- the persistence of symbols, as mathematics presumes a persistence of number. Hence why Plato talks much of mathematics.
  • Heiko
    519
    Formal systems do indeed presume persistence -- the persistence of symbols, as mathematics presumes a persistence of number.Xtrix
    Mathematics do not know time. For example the law of the excluded middle states that any sentence must be either wrong or true. It doesn't matter if one or the other or none was shown. It does not know change. To conclude from this that is presupposes "persistence" is not directly correct as there simply is no difference that would allow to say such a thing.
  • Joshs
    5.2k
    So far as I am aware, persistence is not a notion used in formal logic. Nor does formal logic presume that individuals persist over time.Banno

    You don’t get formal logic without assuming that you can return to the same identical symbol from moment to moment in reflection or perception. The enterprise would collapse before it could begin without the idealization that allows this repetition of identity of ‘a’, ‘b’ and ‘c’ over time. They must sit still as what they are long enough for you to manipulate them. You might respond , ‘but we do manipulate them, and successfully’. And I agree, we manipulate moving targets without noticing that fact thanks to our convincing idealizations.
  • Joshs
    5.2k
    Mathematics do not know time. For example the law of the excluded middle states that any sentence must be either wrong or true. It doesn't matter if one or the other or none was shown. It does not know change.Heiko

    The fact that it does not know change and time doesn’t mean that change and time don’t underlie it. If you stare at the period at the end of this sentence you say that it remains identically what it is as you continue to stare at it. But this is an idealization on your part. It is something slightly different from moment to moment. Or if I ask you to recall from memory the period you just looked at , you would say that recollected period brings back the identical period from memory. But memory reconstructs what it recalls. So recollection and perception do not preserve identity from moment to moment. We can ignore this fact for the sake of convenience of doing logic and math, but it comes back to bite us on the ass when we try to create psychological models of perception , empathy and social meanings based on formal logic.
  • Joshs
    5.2k
    Hence we have definitions of "is" (existence, being) which are not dependent on time.Banno

    We also have definitions of God that are not dependent on time. Or I should say, that believe themselves not to be dependent on time.
  • Heiko
    519
    It might seem that the statements
    2*a = b
    b = 4
    follow each other but they "happen" at the same time. There is only one "b" - it denotes one and the same object. Of course this is an idealization. But note this not me starting at the period as the object itself is ideal in first place. When it comes to senses: There is a qualitative difference between seeing, hearing, tasting and so on. Are those senses identical to themselves?
  • Metaphysician Undercover
    12.3k
    Husserl and Heidegger derive mathematical continuity from the idea of enduring objective presence, on which the vulgar concept of time is based. They deconstruct the idea of objective presence and determine that authentic time can’t be likened to a mathematical continuity.Joshs

    The problem which Aristotle demonstrated is the fundamental incompatibility between the two distinct ways of describing what you have named as "enduring objective presence". The one way is based in an assumption that what remains the same as time passes (being) provides the fundamental description,, and the other way assumes that things not remaining the same as time passes (becoming) provides the fundamental description. These two fundamental descriptions are incompatible ways of describing the proposed "enduring objective presence".

    The issue you point to, with Hegel and Heidegger, is that "enduring objective presence", or what we commonly call "continuity", is itself a descriptive phrase which implies "remains the same as time passes". Therefore this description, "enduring objective presence", get's placed in the category of "being", and is rejected as a true representation of temporal existence, when one is in favour of the other category, becoming.

    Rejecting one for the other does not resolve the incompatibility, which Aristotle exposed though. What Aristotle showed, which was derived from Plato, is that it is necessary to allow that the two fundamental, and inherently incompatible descriptive forms, are both real. So the solution is not to reject one for the other, but the arduous task of determining which parts of reality require the one descriptive form, and which parts require the other.

    To make "change" intelligible requires that we assume an aspect which remains the same as time passes, and an aspect which does not stay the same as time passes. So physics for example, assumes laws which stay the same (being), and a thing which does not stay the same (becoming), as the physical world. It does not help to say that one assumption is more real or "objective" than the other.


    But is there a preference for temporality, or is that a misunderstanding on my part? And if so, why?Banno

    Time is what provides us with change, and that is what you might call the spice of life. Wouldn't life be an absolute bore if nothing changed? Time provides us with the ability to do things, change things, want things etc.. The reason why temporality is commonly given priority in philosophy is that this is the only way to make sense of spatiality. Spatial existence can then be seen for what it is, a construction, created by the sensing being to provide it an advantage in its temporal existence. What we sense is the passing of time, but we create a spatial representation which allows us to understand the passing of time. Once we see temporality as the true reality, spatial representations can be understood as just that, representations. And the vast majority of humanity takes these spatial representations to be reality, as Plato's cave dwellers, not having seen through to the temporal reality on the other side.
  • Mikie
    6.1k
    Mathematics do not know time.Heiko

    Mathematics is a human activity. Humans do indeed exist “in” time (or, better, “as” time). When we think in symbols, we’re thinking in a certain moment in time.

    Mathematics does indeed presuppose time.
  • Joshs
    5.2k
    The one way is based in an assumption that what remains the same as time passes (being) provides the fundamental description, and the other way assumes that things not remaining the same as time passes (becoming) provides the fundamental description. These two fundamental descriptions are incompatible ways of describing the proposed "enduring objective presence".Metaphysician Undercover

    But Heidegger claims that for Aristotle time itself is derived from motion, a continuous change within something enduringly objectively presence. So it would seem for Aristotle the scene of being and becoming is the objectively present frame of time as motion.

    “The thoughts of motion, continuity, extension—and in the case of change of place, place—are interwoven with the experience of time.”(basic problems of phenomenology) “ So far as time is kineseos ti, something connected with motion, this means that in thinking time, motion or rest is always thought along with it. In Aristotelian language, time follows, is in succession to, motion.” “Because the now is transition it always measures a from-to, it measures a how-long, a
    duration.”
    Time is making present according to Aristotle, (the present at hand) and in so doing is a counting
    of time as now, now, now. “And thus time shows itself for the vulgar understanding as a succession of constantly "objectively present" nows that pass away and arrive at the same time. Time is understood as a sequence, as the "flux" of nows, as the "course of time.”(Being and
    Time).
    “The succession of nows is interpreted as something somehow objectively present; for it itself moves "in time." We say that in every now it is now, in every now it already disappears. The now is now in every now, thus constantly present as the same, even if in every now another may be disappearing as it arrives. Yet it does show at the same time the constant presence of
    itself as this changing thing.”
  • Srap Tasmaner
    4.6k
    Hence we have definitions of "is" (existence, being) which are not dependent on time.Banno

    There’s another way to look at this though: whatever understanding of being is implicit in logic (classical logic, Frege’s logic) and mathematics is an understanding appropriate to unchanging, timeless — i.e., eternal — entities. Whatever sort of being we have, or anything else we’re familiar with has, it’s not like that.
  • Heiko
    519
    Mathematics is a human activity. Humans do indeed exist “in” time (or, better, “as” time).Xtrix
    So the second sentence supposes an identity that is not there? That's the wonder of logics. They are not dialectical in nature.
  • Mikie
    6.1k
    Mathematics is a human activity. Humans do indeed exist “in” time (or, better, “as” time).
    — Xtrix
    So the second sentence supposes an identity that is not there?
    Heiko

    No, it supposes human beings. Human beings are certainly "there." As are mathematical objects.
  • Srap Tasmaner
    4.6k
    Mathematics is a human activity. Humans do indeed exist “in” time (or, better, “as” time). When we think in symbols, we’re thinking in a certain moment in time.

    Mathematics does indeed presuppose time.
    Xtrix

    This is like arguing that mathematics presupposes oxygen.
  • Mikie
    6.1k


    In a way, it does. Without oxygen, there aren’t human beings. Without human beings, there is no mathematics. In a sense there is no “time” either, if by time we mean in the traditional sense.
  • Heiko
    519
    I do not really see the point of this discussion. Positive statements have to follow some rules to not be just wrong. And being able to refer to an ideal object more than once surely is more of an "enabler" of discussions.
    The whole argumentation that the things were really always different and so on overlooks the very topic of the discussion: It is still the same thing nonetheless. If things can be identified and referred - and this is in fact the usual habit - this seems to lie in the nature of being. In fact it seems to be the primary way of recognition. Given: there are moments when this is not the case but in my view it requires some thinking about what is there to even arrive at the point where things "logically have to" be constructed from raw sensual input.
  • Metaphysician Undercover
    12.3k
    But Heidegger claims that for Aristotle time itself is derived from motion, a continuous change within something enduringly objectively presence. So it would seem for Aristotle the scene of being and becoming is the objectively present frame of time as motion.Joshs

    This is not really the case, because Aristotle distinguished two senses of "time", the primary sense as a tool of measurement, and a secondary sense as the thing measured. The secondary sense is often overlooked, in modern interpretations, but it is important to his physics and metaphysics. When we assume an "objectively present frame of time", this is "time" in the primary sense, a conceptual presupposition, assuming a 'point of being at the present', from which we may observe and measure. Assuming this point of unchanging being, at the present (within which no time passes) enables us to produce principles of measurement.

    Notice in your quoted passage, the human act of measuring is what is referred to by Aristotle: "the now...always measures..". This describes how we apply a "now" as a point in time, then some particular motion occurs (the apparent movement of the sun for example), and we apply another "now" to mark off a measured time period (an hour or something). These are like non-dimensional points on a line, there is no line within them, but a continuous line between them.

    This application of "nows" in relation with motion provides us with a number which is used as a principle of measurement. The nows are an aspect of the measuring tool, the conception of "time" as a tool of measurement, just like "points" are an aspect of the spatial conception which is a tool for spatial measurement..

    If we move to the secondary sense of "time", as what is measured, we find the conception of a continuity without any nows. The nows are seen as artificial. Therefore, when Heidegger says “The succession of nows is interpreted as something somehow objectively present..." in your quoted passage, this is a misunderstanding of Aristotle. It conflates the distinction between the primary sense of "time", and the secondary sense of "time", which Aristotle tried to establish.

    .
  • 180 Proof
    14k
    :up:

    "Mathematics does indeed presuppose time."
    — Xtrix

    This is like arguing that mathematics presupposes oxygen.
    Srap Tasmaner
    :smirk:
    ↪Srap Tasmaner

    In a way, it does.
    Xtrix
    :roll:
  • Joshs
    5.2k
    Mathematics is a human activity. Humans do indeed exist “in” time (or, better, “as” time). When we think in symbols, we’re thinking in a certain moment in time.

    Mathematics does indeed presuppose time.
    — Xtrix

    This is like arguing that mathematics presupposes oxygen.
    Srap Tasmaner

    Then it needs to be made clearer. If we assume that what makes mathematics and logic possible is the view of time as the processual transformation of the past into the future via the appearance, endurance ( brief or prolonged) and disappearance of temporary objective forms, then we are thinking of time as external grid. This is the meaning of humans existing ‘in’ time, but not ‘as’ time, which requires a more fundamental and original concept of time.
  • Nothing
    41
    Closer to the nature of being it seemsHeiko
    The idea is you capture some life i, deer, horse, elephant, ant, ... capture some life, we die life still exist,
    Molecule get life from life, it dies back to common life...
    Idea is how we can decise what is your air and what is mine after we pop up ballons ?
  • Srap Tasmaner
    4.6k


    By hand, it might take you a minute or two to work out that 357 x 68 = 24,276. A calculator or computer will do it faster, but still take a measurable amount of time. But how long does it take 357 x 68 to be 24,276?



    I think I would be okay with saying that time in mathematics is truncated to an eternal and unchanging now, and that this is what people mean when they say mathematics is ‘timeless’; and indeed the very idea of ‘now’ derives from a certain way of conceiving time, certainly.

    But that’s addressing the content of mathematics — which I have no objection to, even in this somewhat oblique, conceptual way — rather than arguing that whatever is true of mathematicians is true of mathematics. Pierre de Fermat was French but his theorem was not. Andrew Wiles, unlike Fermat, continues to breathe every day, but his proof of Fermat’s theorem has never drawn a breath.
  • frank
    14.5k


    Timelessness has the idea of change wrapped up in it. The concept of change is dependent on eternity.

    Surely H understood that well enough not to try to put all the eggs in one basket.
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