What if it someone's argument is using circular reasoning?Also, to get clear on this, an argument can't be a tautology. A conditional with the premise as antecedent and conclusion as consequent can be. — The Great Whatever
you can't deny that you're self-reflecting while in the act of doing it. — Pneumenon
The second part 'I am' is a tautology. — andrewk
I am no Latin scholar but I note that the Latin original 'cogito ergo sum' contains no pronouns. Literally it seems to say something like 'thinks therefore exists'. Usually, as in other pronoun-drop languages like Italian, a pronoun is implied. But just because a pronoun is usually implied in a sentence with this type of grammatic structure, does not mean it is always implied. Just because the sentence would seem to make sense with the pronoun inserted (in Italian the 'I' pronoun would be Io. I don't know what it would be in Latin), that doesn't mean that Descartes intended to imply one. Perhaps it was intended for there to be no pronoun, implied or otherwise, and - in a pronoun-drop language - one cannot distinguish between a sentence in which an implied pronoun was intended and one in which it was not. — andrewk
I am unfamiliar with the term "LD-valid," but the concept sounds interesting; I've previously given some thought to such statements, but never knew that they had a specific designation. Off the top of my head, perhaps a few other LD-valid statements (i.e. those statements which cannot be uttered without being true, and the truth of which is contingent) would be (1) I have uttered at least one statement, and (2) I have uttered at least one falsehood, (3) I have uttered at least one truth or at least one falsehood.It's not a tautology: it's LD-valid, which means it can't be uttered in a context by an agent without being true. But the proposition that it expresses, that the speaker exists, is contingent. — The Great Whatever
Ah, got it. Thanks for the info.The term comes from David Kaplan – LD means 'logic of demonstratives.' His classical example was 'I'm here now,' but that one seems not quite to be a case, depending on how you construe 'here.' — The Great Whatever
Perhaps some may suffer from liar-like problems. Let's take another look:For your examples, (1) and (3) would seem to depend on how you construe the tense, and (2) is liar-paradoxical where it's the first thing someone ever utters (and the tense is interpreted in the right way), no?
am no Latin scholar but I note that the Latin original 'cogito ergo sum' contains no pronouns. Literally it seems to say something like 'thinks therefore exists'. — andrewk
You may try to say "I cannot doubt that I am doubting" is circular, but according to formal logic, it is not. According to current theory, AFTER you make the statement, you seek empirical evidence, by asking the question, "was I doubting?" to evaluate the proposition. At that time, the referent is to an activity in the past, and therefore the argument is not cyclic, but rather, a valid reference to a past state. — ernestm
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