• TonesInDeepFreeze
    3.8k
    You say it yourself: "syntactical role".Lionino

    No, 'literally' there is not violating the syntactical role of an adjective.

    And at this point, you are merely arguing by reiteration of your assertion.

    "Bob has a red French horn" is syntactical even though the speaker meant that Bob's French horn is loud.
  • Lionino
    2.7k
    This is very close to the way that Aristotle defends the PNC in Metaphysics IV. Much of this is just a question of what we mean by 'logic'.Leontiskos

    Curious that the greatest genius of history agrees with me on virtually every issue.Lionino

    :cool:
  • TonesInDeepFreeze
    3.8k
    neither am I interested if English "grammarians"Lionino

    Yet you cited one.

    I don't know what point you are making about logic when you rule out "If ___, then ___".
    — TonesInDeepFreeze

    None. I made the comment standalone without tagging anyone and you replied to it.

    But it is not that important, I write it wrongly too for the purpose of clarity.
    Lionino

    I thought you might have intended some point about logic. Good to know that you didn't.
  • Tarskian
    658
    The law of identity is allowed by constructivism. It "withstands foundational scrutiny" by constructivism. No strawman.
    13m
    TonesInDeepFreeze

    All three laws are allowed. I just pointed out that there are issues in assuming two of them.
  • TonesInDeepFreeze
    3.8k
    Rhetorical question: is it possible to misspeak, which is to say to speak wrongly, without committing a grammar mistake?Lionino

    What does 'speak wrongly' mean? Speak ungrammatically or speak falsely?

    Of course it is possible to use the wrong word and still be grammatical. People do it all the time.

    One could make up examples all day, or observe them.

    'literally' is an adjective. "I was literally dying" is grammatical. It is not made ungrammatical by the fact in the world that the speaker happened to not be dying and not literally dying.
  • TonesInDeepFreeze
    3.8k
    My reply to Leontiskos, which you asked about, is exactly that, except that it is laws of logic that a system may deny, not laws of thought.Lionino

    The way it read was that there are laws of logic that may be broken but not laws of thought. But if any law of logic may be also a law of thought, then there are laws of thought that may be broken too. And it wasn't stated as to what systems may deny, but merely as to what laws may deny.
  • TonesInDeepFreeze
    3.8k
    Is grammar not the rules which give us what can be said right or wrong in language?Lionino

    Grammar doesn't dictate what is true or false, only what is well formed.

    "I was literally dying" is well formed even if untrue.

    "Bob's French horn is red" is well formed even if untrue.

    We can give millions of examples in which the speaker misuses a word, but the sentence is still grammatical. Since you are wont to skip that point, here's one more:

    The speaker may think 'melancholic' means 'mellow', then say, "The song is melancholic" when the song is not at all melancholic. A false but grammatical utterance.

    Are you going to continue to skip that fact?
  • TonesInDeepFreeze
    3.8k
    I just pointed out that there are issues in assuming two of them.Tarskian

    No, you said that the only law that "withstands scrutiny" for constructivism is non-contradiction. And that is false.
  • TonesInDeepFreeze
    3.8k
    One may choose different ways of thinking but every way of thinking that one may choose still has fundamental rules of rationality.Lionino

    What is regarded as rational may be different for different people. And people may choose even to think irrationally by any standard. But, of course, given a particular conception of rationality, some thoughts will not be rational and will violate certain attendant laws of rational thinking.

    That something is necessary for rationality (under a given definition of 'rationality') doesn't entail that people may not break "laws of thought".
    — TonesInDeepFreeze

    I can't imagine how it does not entail unless you are working under a very thin definition of rationality.
    Lionino

    Doesn't matter what the definition is. People may break all kinds of norms of rationality in their thinking. But, of course, tautologically, they can't break those norms with out breaking those norms.

    And it does not dialetheism permit conceiving such things?
    — TonesInDeepFreeze

    I personally don't think dialethism is universally applicable or says anything deep about human rationality. It may be helpful as a gimmick to work around self-reference paradox, but that is about it.
    Lionino

    Whatever one thinks about dialetheism, the point stands that people may conceive dialetheistically. A person may say of himself that he cannot conceive other than by certain rules regarded as irrational not to conceive by. But that doesn't entail that other people can't conceive outside of those rules. Indeed, in such things as art, dreams, ruminations and mystical experiences, people can conceive in all kinds of ways. But, again, if the point is that people can't think irrationally without thinking irrationally, then of course, it would be irrational to deny that point.
  • Tarskian
    658
    No, you said that the only law that "withstands scrutiny" for constructivism is non-contradiction. And that is false.TonesInDeepFreeze
    Agreed. The identity of indiscernibles is criticized in other areas of mathematics.
  • TonesInDeepFreeze
    3.8k


    Regarding constructivism, we were talking about the law of identity.

    What are some criticisms in mathematics of the identity of indiscernibles? (Of course, it is not first order axiomatizable.)
  • Tarskian
    658
    What are some criticisms in mathematics of the identity of indiscernibles?TonesInDeepFreeze

    Principle 2, on the other hand, is controversial; Max Black famously argued against it.[5]

    Black, Max (1952). "The Identity of Indiscernibles". Mind. 61 (242): 153–64.
  • TonesInDeepFreeze
    3.8k


    Thank you for that cite. That's interesting.
  • Lionino
    2.7k
    "I was literally dying" is well formed even if untrue.TonesInDeepFreeze

    It might be "well formed" to you under your understanding of what a well-formed phrase is. When people say — not lying or confused — that their cat is black, but they actually have a dog who is white, and they are thinking of their white dog but saying "My cat is black", they are using the words 'cat' and 'black' wrongly.

    They are using the words wrongly. It is not a matter of the sentence being true or false because it is not about the truth-value, because what they think they are saying is indeed true — they do have a white dog —, but the words employed are not the correct ones. They are using the wrong words.

    So, what is the modality in which that phrase is wrong? It is not in physics, not in javascript, neither is it in morality, it is in grammar, therefore it is grammatically incorrect.

    Entertain: If I taught English to a German kid, and they said "my cat is black" thinking what in their language is "mein Hund ist weiss", I would not teach that their sentence is not true because I know their household, perhaps the kid is even lying, but I would teach instead that "mein Hund ist weiss" is in fact "my dog is white", and what they said is instead "meine Katze ist schwarze".
  • Lionino
    2.7k
    No, 'literally' there is not violating the syntactical role of an adjective.TonesInDeepFreeze

    Adjective is not a syntactic class, it is a morphological class. In fact, 'literally' is not an adjective, it is an adverb, 'literal' would be the adjective. The syntactic class of 'literally', there, is adverbial adjunct, or just adjunct according to Cambridge, as they call nominal adjuncts simply 'modifiers'.
  • Lionino
    2.7k
    "Bob has a red French horn" is syntactical even though the speaker meant that Bob's French horn is loud.TonesInDeepFreeze

    You keep saying it yourself. It is syntactically correct. True. I am saying however that it is not grammatically correct, and indeed it isn't.
  • TonesInDeepFreeze
    3.8k


    By syntactical, I mean grammatical.

    "Bob has a red French horn" is grammatical, even though it is false and even though Bob is misusing the word 'red' when he means 'loud'.
  • TonesInDeepFreeze
    3.8k
    When people say — not lying or confused — that their cat is black, but they actually have a dog who is white, and they are thinking of their white dog but saying "My cat is black", they are using the words 'cat' and 'black' wrongly.Lionino

    But not ungrammatically.

    "My cat is black" is grammatical even though it is false and the speaker meant that his dog is white.

    You keep evading that very simple point.
  • Lionino
    2.7k
    What is regarded as rational may be different for different people.TonesInDeepFreeze

    I addressed that before, it is tangential:

    then I will just call it "my laws of thought" and then we are back to the problem of solipsismLionino

    .

    Doesn't matter what the definition is. People may break all kinds of norms of rationality in their thinking.TonesInDeepFreeze

    Ok, clearly you are operating under a thin definition of rationality, where one even can think irrationality. Let's understand instead 'laws of thought' as the necessary conditions/operations for my/human/any rationalitymind. Since they are necessary, they cannot be broken. If a mind does not obey them, that mind is no longer a (my/human) rationality.

    Some theologists defended that God is beyond logic and may even break his own rules. God's mind therefore does not obey to any laws at all, be them of thought or logic or else.

    The way it read was that there are laws of logic that may be broken but not laws of thought.TonesInDeepFreeze

    Correct.

    But if any law of logic may be also a law of thought, then there are laws of thought that may be broken too.TonesInDeepFreeze

    Instead, if a law of logic can somehow holistically and correctly express a law of thought, that law of logic cannot be broken. If it can, it is no longer a law of thought, as by the definition I gave above.

    Nethertheless, I think laws of thought and laws of logic are separate things; just that laws of logic are often based on how we try to linguistically express some perceived rules of our mind. Aristotle went along those lines, isn't it so? @Leontiskos

    "I think therefore I am", for example, is not a law of logic, but it is pretty much talking about a law of thought.
  • Lionino
    2.7k
    And it wasn't stated as to what systems may deny, but merely as to what laws may deny.TonesInDeepFreeze

    Wasn't it?

    for any law of thought there may be a system that denies the law, so any law of thought could be deniedTonesInDeepFreeze

    I imagine by 'law of thought' you mean 'law of logic' here?
  • Lionino
    2.7k
    By syntactical, I mean grammatical.TonesInDeepFreeze

    Well, case in point, isn't it?

    Everytime you say those well-formed phrases are syntactically correct, I agree. But they are not grammatically correct if the speaker thought/meant something other than what those words actually mean. So I cannot say they are grammatically correct.

    Even then, "if … then …" is indeed syntactically incorrect, and so it is also grammatically incorrect.
    Naturally, syntactically incorrect → grammatically incorrect, but the reverse doesn't hold; just because something is grammatically wrong it doesn't mean it is syntactically wrong, example: "Rob have a piink horn on his forhead", syntax is fine, but the rest of grammar isn't.
  • TonesInDeepFreeze
    3.8k
    It is not in physics, not in javascript, neither is it in morality, it is in grammar, therefore it is grammatically incorrect.Lionino

    Ah, how conveniently you left out 'semantically'.

    It is wrong semantically, as it uses the wrong meanings of the words. It is semantically wrong, but not grammatically wrong.

    You keep evading:

    "Bob is a splenetic guy" is grammatical even though the speaker misused the word 'splenetic' thinking it means what we mean by 'splendiferous'.

    As to teaching English, of course it is needed not only to say that the sentence is false but that it is false because the words don't mean what the speaker thinks they mean. But that still doesn't make "My cat is black" ungrammatical. It is both (1) False and (2) False on account of the wrong words being used. But it is still grammatical.

    When we consider whether an utterance is grammatical, we don't first check what the speaker meant by the utterance. We merely look at the words themselves. If I give you this:

    "The cat is black" and ask, "is that grammatical?" You don't track down the speaker and find out whether he knows the definitions of 'cat' and 'black'.
  • TonesInDeepFreeze
    3.8k


    My mistake about 'adjective'; I do know that it is an adverb.

    But there's another example:

    "'literally' is an adjective" is grammatical, even though false, and even though it is false by dint of the speaker using a word incorrectly.

    And I'm merely talking about the fact certain parts of speech are required to be certain positions and in relation with other parts of speech. "Black the is cat beautiful' is not grammatical as the part of speech are not in correct order, but "The black cat is beautiful" is grammatical.
  • Lionino
    2.7k
    It is semantically wrong, but not grammatically wrong.TonesInDeepFreeze

    Semantics is part of grammar.
  • Lionino
    2.7k
    But that still doesn't make "My cat is black" ungrammaticalTonesInDeepFreeze

    What I am explaining is that it does.

    "The cat is black" and ask, "is that grammatical?" You don't track down the speaker and find out whether he knows the definitions of 'cat' and 'black'.TonesInDeepFreeze

    Of course. It doesn't mean however that it was grammatically correct. We assume it is because we assume the speakers know how to use words.

    Now consider the following:

    "Criteria is enough."
    "Criteria are enough."

    You would say the first one is grammatically wrong, because 'criteria' is plural. Here is the problem: there are actually some people in the world whose first name is Criteria. The ambiguous word in question is in the beginning of the phrase, so we can't choose the capitalisation. So, without knowing the intent of the speaker (which is often provided by context), you can't say whether they are talking about just criteria being enough for the accomplishment of something or whether the girl Criteria is enough to get the party going. And the issue that is at play here is not even semantics, it is also morphology and arguably syntax. Without knowing the intent of the speaker, we can't know whether it is grammatically correct.
  • TonesInDeepFreeze
    3.8k
    Semantics is part of grammar.Lionino

    It's interesting that you say that. Because it is very wrong.

    Semantics concerns the meanings of words. Syntax (grammer) concerns the rules for formation of expressions.
  • Lionino
    2.7k
    The very wrong here is you. Syntax and grammar are not synonymous like you need them to be for the absurd claim that semantics is not part of grammar to pass.
  • TonesInDeepFreeze
    3.8k
    What is regarded as rational may be different for different people.
    — TonesInDeepFreeze

    I addressed that before, it is tangential:
    Lionino

    If people have different concepts of rationality, then they may differ as to what laws of thought they adhere to, thus there are laws of thought that may be broken.

    Doesn't matter what the definition is. People may break all kinds of norms of rationality in their thinking.
    — TonesInDeepFreeze

    Ok, clearly you are operating under a thin definition of rationality, where one even can think irrationality.
    Lionino

    That is exactly what I am not saying. I am not at all saying that rationality permits irrationality. Rather, I am saying that people may break rationality, thus they may break a given law of thought. I even said that, of course, tautologically, adhering to rationality requires adhering to rationality.

    Let's understand instead 'laws of thought' as the necessary conditions/operations for my/human/any rationality. Since they are necessary, they cannot be broken. If a mind does not obey them, that mind is no longer a (my/human) rationality.Lionino

    That's okay. But it is different from saying that the laws of thought cannot be broken. If we consider those laws of thought to be necessary for rationality, then they cannot be broken without incurring irrationality. But they still can be broken.

    The way it read was that there are laws of logic that may be broken but not laws of thought.
    — TonesInDeepFreeze

    Correct.

    But if any law of logic may be also a law of thought, then there are laws of thought that may be broken too.
    — TonesInDeepFreeze

    Instead, if a law of logic can somehow holistically and correctly express a law of thought, that law of logic cannot be broken. If it can, it is not longer a law of thought, as by the definition I gave above.
    Lionino

    But, if I recall correctly, you said that in general laws of logic can be broken, as you even gave an example of breaking the law of noncontradiction. Moreover, if there is a single law of logic that can be broken, and that law of logic corresponds with a law of thought, then there is a law of thought that can be broken. Moreover, even that point is not required, since we know that people do break laws of thought. Though, of course, if a certain law of thought is required for rationality then it can't be broken without incurring irrationality.
  • TonesInDeepFreeze
    3.8k


    Syntax and grammar are synonymous in some contexts and nearly synonymous in others.

    Semantics stands opposed to them.

    Look it up.
  • TonesInDeepFreeze
    3.8k
    And it wasn't stated as to what systems may deny, but merely as to what laws may deny.
    — TonesInDeepFreeze

    Wasn't it?
    Lionino

    ↪Leontiskos I don't think there are laws of logic that cannot be broken, but that there are laws of thought that can't be broken (for obvious reasons). Some laws of logic may express those laws of thought. But that is just a semantic contention.Lionino
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