So in terms of syntax, de dicto is most similar to ☐∃(x)f(x) and de re, to ∃(x)☐(fx), [...] — Banno

Agreed.

[...] while in terms of semantics de dicto understands necessity as "true in every possible world"... — Banno

Agreed, e.g.

Note that [problematic statements] (30) and (31) are not to be confused with:

Necessarily (∃x) (x > 7),

Necessarily (∃x) (if there is life on the Evening Star then there is life on x),

which present no problem of interpretation comparable to that presented by (30) and (31). The difference may be accentuated by a change of example: in a game of a type admitting of no tie it is necessary that some one of the players will win, ... — Quine p.147

(There is a winner in each play of the game, there is a richest man in each world, there is always a number greater than 7, or etc.)

Evidently Quine is ok with the kind of reading you (and Wiki) are calling de dicto.

However, not so sure about:

[...] while de re might understand necessity as "true in this (or some) world", a cumbersome notion incompatible with S5. — Banno

Whereas (I think) Quine's objection is to a typical de re reading, that there should be

... one player of whom it may be said to be necessary that he win. — Quine p.147

Not because such a reading (there existing a winner of all possible plays of the game or a richest in all worlds or a greater than 7 in all worlds) is self-evidently non-sensical but because it has arisen through referential opacity, and hence behaves incoherently. E.g.

What is this number which, according to ["(∃x)(x is necessarily is greater than 7"], is necessarily greater than 7? According to ["9 is necessarily greater than 7"], from which ["(∃x)(x is necessarily is greater than 7"] was inferred, it was 9, that is, the number of planets; but to suppose this would conflict with the fact that ["the number of planets is necessarily greater than 7"] is false. — Quine p.148

Does this objection hold up? If not why not?

... Hmm, chapter 6 of this book is called "Quine on de re and de dicto modality". :nerd:

but we can be much clearer here using modal first order language than was possible in medieval times. — Banno

Isn't that what Quine doubts?

Is he wrong? How?

How does possible world semantics restore coherence in the face of referential opacity?

Asking for a friend.

My understanding is that you are saying Quine rejects the idea that existence is a second-order predicate, — Leontiskos

Agreed.

and therefore Klima is mistaken in his claim, "[this] quite naturally leads to Quine's slogan..." — Leontiskos

Not necessarily, but the claim wants explaining. What is meant to be wrong with the slogan, and what has the doctrine of quantifiers being second order predicates got to do with it?

Regardless, it makes sense to me that Quine would not want to call the quantifier a second-order predicate per se, but that he would nevertheless admit that it does bear on existence in a second-order manner. — Leontiskos

In what way?

Is Quine here abandoning his idea that, "to be is to be a value of a bound variable"? — Leontiskos

No, just the doctrine received from Frege regarding quantifiers as second-order predicates, that is, as attaching to first order predicates in the manner that first order predicates attach to names. This specific doctrine is being dropped.

Why? Because first order predicates attach to names in a manner that generally assumes the existence of a thing named. Where this is in doubt, the meaningfulness of the sentence is in doubt.

Quine, as a nominalist, would rather not encourage any similar assumption about a predicate. Let's not have the meaningfulness of a predication depend on the existence of a thing or even a property that the predicate denotes (applies to).

That would mess up his proposed application of Russell's method of definite descriptions to the task in question, that of asserting an uncontroversially meaningful sentence denying the existence of Pegasus.

This account, coupled with the Kantian-Fregean idea of existence as a second-order predicate, i.e., a quantifier, quite naturally leads to Quine’s slogan: “to be is to be a value of a bound variable”.2 — Klima

This rang a bell.

I also am puzzled about the utility and motivation of a second special doctrine which [Geach] puts forward, namely, that quantification is a second-level predicate. He elucidates this doctrine as follows :

" A first-level predicate can be attached to a name, in order to make an assertion about that which the name stands for ; a second-level predicate can be attached to such a first-level predicate in order to make an assertion about that which it stands for. Quine's misunderstanding of second-level pre-dicates arises from his unwillingness to admit that first-level predicates do stand for anything."

This doctrine is, as Mr. Geach remarks, to be found in Frege. It is also espoused in my own first book (1934). But neither of these circumstances counts in favour of the doctrine, and Mr. Geach also says nothing to raise the doctrine above the level of a bare pronunciamento. Surely we can understand quantifiers perfectly well with or without classifying them as predicates which make assertions about that which first-level predicates stand for. Nothing is achieved by this move except the creation of an opportunity to talk of first-level predicates as standing for something. — Quine reply to Geach

Ummm, what? — Darkneos

People think: reference must be determinate because language can talk physics.

Yes. I guess. Not sure.

I assume chatbots and chromosomes are all syntax. Like Chinese rooms. And semantics is the interpretations that we (and future machines conceivably might) add. As Searle argues.

I agree that this added dimension is what Searle addresses in terms of intention. I grok the "extensionalism" (and nominalism) of Quine and Goodman as trying to bypass the internal psychology. Hence Word and Object rather than Person and Object (as Chisholm had it).

But no, no one is denying the importance of semantics. (Intentionality if you prefer.)

we could devise a more accurate notation “that makes I think internal to p: we may form the letter p by writing, in the shape of a p, the words I think.” — J

A splendid proposal, I say, but improvable. In a spirit of extensionalism, we may remove the thinker from the analysis, and instead form a suitable word shape from the words "this sentence token hereby asserts that".

Pat's objection is likewise less psychological. He says

it might as well read, "this sentence token declares true that". But either way, you seem to be confusing utterance or inscription in the object language with utterance or inscription in the meta-language. Or at any rate, it's not my experience that a declarative sentence usually refers to its own semantic properties. And if it did so, the effort would be unnecessary, as is well known. The prefix would be entirely redundant."

I think he has a point, about assertion and declaring true. But I disagree about redundancy. Thinking you can speak (utter or inscribe) as though completely in an object language, without referring implicitly to the convention of reference between word and object, albeit the convention of a make-believe and non-physical relation, is magical thinking. Not in the good way of playing the game of pretend, but in the bad way of pretending not to be.

Another cause might be the evident separation of convention and pretence (i.e. semantics) from syntax, in many cases. We are ready to add an interpretation to the physical behaviour of a calculator's cogs or capacitors, or to that of a cell's chromosomes. And some of the calculator's mechanical and syntactic behaviour affects display elements that partake in the semantic interpretations that we add; and some of the chromosome's mechanical and syntactic behaviour affects protein production that partakes similarly in our semantic interpretations. Still, the syntactic operations might carry on just as effectively without the interpretations.

My point being, it almost seems as though meaning is physical after all?

(Music to the ears of the bio-semioticians?)

What does Quine mean by the inscrutability of reference? — Darkneos

He means a) the relation of reference not happening to be a physical relation, but instead mere convention, or pretence; and b) the possibility of determining a non-physical relation, from observation of physical behaviours, not happening to be as straightforward as we might think.

Why b? Who ever thought the possibility of determining a convention from observation of behaviours would be straightforward, and anyway why should that make it impossible?

Well... people who thought that theories based on observation of the same behaviours should naturally converge towards a unique theory of what the behaviours meant. That's who. And those people being wrong about that would rule out a unique determination, at least.

Why do people think a unique determination is a reasonable expectation? Quine talks about the consequences, not so much causes, of failure to perceive the indeterminacy. But it seems reasonable to blame this failure on the success of language in talking about real, physical relations. Its unreasonable effectiveness, if you will.

Logic is the essence of philosophy. Compare:

Philosophy of science isn't science of philosophy.

Philosophy of art isn't art of science.

Whereas, philosophy of logic is logic of philosophy.

QED

Trying to put Peirce in either nominalism or Platonism (label or categorize him) — Mapping the Medium

To be fair, you're the one hurling the 'isms' around.

The irony...

By labeling, — Mapping the Medium

Again, nominalism isn't a tendency to proliferate labels. Nominalisation is closer to being that.

By labeling, nominalism often concretizes properties that are actually relational. — Mapping the Medium

Nominalism agrees that nominalisation tends to reify (hypostatize) abstract properties, i.e. suggest they are real like concrete objects. Nominalism opposes that tendency.

Nominalism doesn't concretize properties because it doesn't reify them, and nominalisation doesn't necessarily concretize properties even when it reifies them. In reifying them it (nominalisation) might posit them as abstract properties (platonism). But if it posits or characterises them as concrete properties, then it's neither nominalist nor platonist.

You seem to suggest that concretizing amounts to monadising? (Maybe there's a better word for reducing relations to monadic properties.)

Being concrete is usually opposed to being abstract.

Being monadic (intrinsic if you like) is usually opposed to being relational.

The two distinctions are usually kept apart. Does Peirce associate them? Or could you flesh out how you think they correlate? I would be interested in that.

Nominalism (typically) respects the reality of concrete over abstract, but it has no preference at all for monadic over relational or vice versa.

Nominalisation may or may not concretize, but it also reifies relations just as readily as monadic properties. As the diagrams on the wiki page for hypostatisation make clear.

And Hypostatic Abstraction of the Haphazard kind is exacerbated by nominalists who hypocritically hypostatize the very process they like to oppose?

Could be, I suppose. That hardly explains why you would blame 'nominalism' rather than 'platonism' for the sorry state thus exacerbated.

I think you were confused by the terminology. Sorry.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nominalization?wprov=sfla1

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nominalism?wprov=sfla1

But has my thought been influenced by nominalism?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nominalism?wprov=sfla1

Or has it been influenced by nominalisation?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nominalization?wprov=sfla1

How is this binary question not appropriate?

Influenced by which one?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nominalization?wprov=sfla1

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nominalism?wprov=sfla1

You are approaching this from a nominalist position,. — Mapping the Medium

I am? In what sense of nominalist position? That of someone disposed to nominalisation/reification/hypostatisation? Or that of someone opposed to it?

Ah! I've solved it :rofl:

@Mapping the Medium, you think that nominalists are people who nominalise (or nominalize), in the grammatical sense which is, ironically and confusingly, precisely the process of creating a noun (a 'nominalisation') from a non-noun? But that (and the consequent expansion by one of the assumed ontological domain) is exactly what nominalists from Ockham to Goodman have generally abhorred.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nominalization?wprov=sfla1

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nominalism?wprov=sfla1

I mean, I don't think he does, but I'm intrigued about this thirdness stuff if it's about that.

He reifies the relation of reference or denotation?

Go on?

(Edit: this was when Mapping the Medium had said "he" instead of "Banno" and I thought she (MtM) was addressing the question of mine which she quoted, and which was about Goodman.)

Right, so we're curious (I think someone asked at some point) whence the anti-nominalism? If Goodman says,

The nominalist cancels out the property and treats the predicate as bearing a one-many relation directly to the several things it applies to or denotes. — Goodman

Shouldn't that align with your objection to hypostatisation?

The temptation is to hypostatize — Banno

Yes, or i.e. to reify. Be realist about mere abstractions. The kind of error ('platonism') usually alleged by the nominalist, not of the nominalist.

No worries.

As I specified, here:

Yes, Pegasus exists, in that Pegasus is the subject of a quantification. — Banno

So, is that the same as admitting that Pegasus is fiction, and doesn't literally exist? Or not?

Then I haven't understood your post. — Banno

That was my impression.

That's fairly normal. — Banno

Oh, you!

What bit of your post is where you think we differ? — Banno

About you equivocating between fact and fiction. I suppose that does sound like us.

Are we in agreement? — Banno

No.

If folk want to say that, in addition, Pegasus is in the stables down the road, it's up to them to present their case. — Banno

But if they want to point out that, literally and unequivocally, Pegasus and numbers don't exist, it's up to you to explain how this

Yes, Pegasus exists, in that Pegasus is the subject of a quantification. — Banno

isn't equivocal.

"To be is to be the value of a variable"

just means (it seems to me)

"To avoid rabbit holes, do this: read 'there exists some x such that' as 'at least one of the x among the set of all that exist is such that' ".

I.e. the sentence (following) isn't about whether some particular thing exists but about some particular existent thing.

This might not be a perfect method of staying above ground, but replacing 'the set of all that exist' with anything else isn't following the method.

E.g. replacing it with 'the set of all elements of this or that fiction' is trashing the method.

Influenced by chapter IV of Nelson Goodman's Languages of Art, I go for unanimity and a ternary nature of truth.

A bright room can be controversially white (or a voltage controversially on), and a shadow controversially black (the voltage controversially off), but the whites (or on's) are uncontroversially not blacks (not off's).

Grain collections that are heaps are uncontroversially not pittances and vice versa (grain collections that are pittances are uncontroversially not heaps) but not all of both are uncontroversially one or the other. Some are controversially somewhere in between. But none are even controversially both. The two fuzzy borders (of "heap" and "pittance") are kept far enough apart.

Obviously this is relative to a system. Sometimes the system catches on, other times a continuous spectrum is preferred, other times again some unrestricted pattern of overlapping is more appropriate.

Obviously too there can't (in the restricted system) be free expression for Humpty Dumptys.

antonym — bongo fury

We know.

But the point about predicating truth of future utterances now?

utterances can have propositional content whereas paintings cannot. — J

If utterances can have propositional content (whatever that means) then surely pictures can have pictorial content?

Indeed!

There's no mystical connection between utterances and mind-independent, non-spatial, non-temportal abstract objects;. — Michael

Where (on earth) do you find that Quine accepts that kind of mystical connection?

In his supposing some future inscription to exemplify the word "true"?

Or where?

Surely Quine suggests we refer timelessly (non-modally) to the sentence inscribed or uttered in a future region of space-time? And we describe it (rightly by your hypothesis) as true? Is that non-sensical?

And so "there are unwritten true equations" is true in the non-platonic sense that someone could write a true equation that doesn't exist in the present, — Michael

But are you denying that it's already true?

The only tenable attitude toward quantifiers and other notations of modern logic is to construe them always, in all contexts, as timeless. — Quine: Mr Strawson

I don’t know what you mean.

Rain exists or it doesn’t. — Michael

And if it does, then the world (or region) satisfies the sentence in question. If not, not.

Rain isn't truth-apt. — Michael

Is it satisfaction-apt? That was my point.

Yes, a true sentence is about what is the case. But note that truth is a property of the sentence, not a property of the rain. — Michael

Yes but, to be fair... satisfaction of "it's raining" is a property of the weather event, not a property of the sentence.

:joke: