Pegasus is a mythical creature, hence pegasus exists as a mythical creature. But of course pegasus is not real, so Pegasus does not exist, too. — Banno
So, with that in mind, what's wrong with asking if some ontological entity obtains as a fact, in resolving how it obtains as one of factual or some intersubjective sort? — Shawn
I was so puzzled by how many children believed in Santa Claus, when I knew that there was no evidence for such a person. I knew that my parents gave presents to me and the chimneys were blocked. Personally, I find the idea of Santa Claus as one of the most unhelpful ideas, although I do see this as a basis for thinking about the fictionious, especially in the ideas presented to children. — Jack Cummins
Maybe the simplest, when the simple is enough, but not correct when the going is not-so-simple. The distinction being between "fact" and "true." Strictly speaking - and often not even strictly speaking - they are not the same thing. Sometimes it's easy to tell the difference and lazy not to; sometimes not-so-easy and a mistake not to.the simplest way to work with "facts" is to treat them as true statements. — Banno
Oh dear. The cat is black as fact is an historical fact. It may well have been black, and that quite recently. But it would take some doing to make into a true statement - and by true I mean true at the moment of being said, whenever said."The cat is black" is a fact — Banno
And how, exactly, do you manage to do that? I and the world both grant and use fact and true informally as interchangeable. The cat was black yesterday and even a few minutes ago, near as I could tell. I expect it will be black when it shows up at feeding time. So much for cats. But cats don't make "true" and "fact" mean the same thing.Hence we can write "the cat is black" is true only if the cat is black. — Banno
Oh dear. The cat is black as fact is an historical fact. It may well have been black, and that quite recently. But it would take some doing to make into a true statement - and by true I mean true at the moment of being said, whenever said. — tim wood
"Pegasus is a myth" implies that there is a Pegasus. — Banno
and by true I mean true at the moment of being said, whenever said. — tim wood
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
Spoken by certain philosophers, maybe. Usually, it implies the opposite. — bongo fury
You want "exists" to have one true meaning, — Banno
Then provide your explanation. — Banno
Goodman's very neat solution is then to read "images of characters" e.g. "picture of Pickwick" not as requiring two separate denotata, a picture and a Pickwick, but as long (if only slightly) for "Pickwick-picture", a one-place predicate applying to a certain sub-class of pictures. — bongo fury
You are pretending that words have meanings — Banno
that its usualmeaning[use] is other than it is: which is [to imply] that — bongo fury
Occasionally someone suggests that although 'horse' denotes horses, 'unicorn' denotes portions of unicorn stories. This thesis is untenable, for it rests on a confusion of use and mention. When 'unicorn' is applied to such stories it is applied mention-selectively. It singles out the words and phrases in the story that are unicorn-mentions. When applied denotively (hence, used), it denotes nothing. For among the world's fauna no unicorns are to be found. Indeed, were the thesis correct, a sentence like 'There are no such things as unicorns' would be not only false, but self-defeating. For the sentence itself contains a unicorn-mention which, according to the proposal, is what the term 'unicorn' denotes.
Fictive terms do not, of course, appear exclusively in works of fiction. It was noted above that fictive terms whose origin is in works of fiction also appear in works about fiction. This use of fictive terms is parasitic on their original use, for the ways they are originally used in fiction constrain the ways their replicas may be used in works about fiction. In addition, fictive terms are applied metaphorically in a number of contexts. Discussion of this use of fictive terms must, however, be postponed until an account of metaphor has been presented. There is yet another use of fictive terms. They are employed in factual works whose subject matter, unlike that of literary history or criticism, is not fiction. In particular, I am concerned here with the use of fictive terms in the sciences. Scientists use such terms as 'a perfect vacuum', 'an ideal gas', 'a free market', despite the widespread recognition that there are, properly speaking, no perfect vacuums, ideal gases, or free markets. These expressions function not denotively, but mention-selectively. — Elgin, With Reference to Reference
An example is the disagreement among Shakespearean scholars as to whether the Falstaff of The Merry Wives of Windsor is the same as the Falstaff who appears in Henry IV. The disagreement is to be resolved by deciding what limits a system for describing the plays places on the application of 'Falstaff-description'. — Elgin, With Reference to Reference
'unicorn' denotes portions of unicorn stories. — Elgin, With Reference to Reference
OK, then: who does this? — Banno
A subtler opponent than the believer in fictive entities. — bongo fury
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