It's asking how not when. — Cheshire

Well, if by 'it' you mean player 1's second line, then yes, ok, the 'signal' of a subsequent question perhaps isn't as strong as all that.

You can say that you think it must happen at some point (some grain) but you aren't prepared to say which.

(P3, though?? It hasn't even been put as a question as yet.)

In that case, are you with the epistemicist in supposing an unknowable answer to the numerical question?

I suspect not, and that you imagine it happening at different points (grain numbers) on different occasions of flow. But then you can't blame me for wondering,

[1] Tell me, do you think that a single grain of wheat ever amounts to a heap, for any rate of flow?

I.e. whether you have any respect for P1. Or are, like many people, of the opinion that black is minimally white, off is minimally on, etc.

The question doesn't ask for a tipping point, — Cheshire

Which question? Player 1's second line here?

[1] Tell me, do you think that a single grain of wheat is a heap?
[2] No, absolutely not.
[1] And tell me, do you think that adding a single grain could ever turn a non-heap into a heap?

This question clearly enough signals that the next one may be "which grain?", although a popular version of the game proceeds grain by grain, with the same result, i.e. that you need to be able to answer the question of which grain.

but rather the method of transformation. — Cheshire

Which question asks such a thing?

Ok. And does assuming a rate of flow perhaps render the tipping point unknowable, as per epistemicism?

Or does it imply a range of possible tipping points, and hence a restart of the game as just described?

"Guard this heap with your life"; seems silly — Cheshire

Really? A heap of diamonds? Or (in bad taste but logical enough) of donor kidneys? Are they not suitable for the order?

People are instructed on how to define something they intuitively understand? — Cheshire

Challenged at least to either reject or reform at least one of three intuitively acceptable but evidently incompatible premises, or else the standard logic by which they may be combined.

Yes... and the collective pronoun is a paucity of donor kidneys. — Tom Storm

Thank you, with your permission I'll use 'paucity' along with 'pittance' to expound my antonym-based constructive solution.

Bald and hairy, black and white, on and off, heap and whatever its potential antonym (pittance?)... they all operate perfectly well as alphabets (or conceptual schemes) of two characters (concepts) separated by a comfortable no-mans-land. The puzzle is how to look closely at that without it reverting [...] to a mere spectrum. — bongo fury

Proposed solution here.

The demand that there be an exact criterion determining what is or is not a heap comes from a mistaken metasemantics – the assumption is that ... — Snakes Alive

Yes, yes.

Yes, but the premises, that we are obliged to reject or reform at least one of, are, rather:

P1. a single grain is clearly not a heap

P2. adding a single grain can never turn a non-heap into a heap

P3. heaps exist

Please clarify which, or how. — bongo fury

I.e. can you play the game, or is it beneath you? Ah good:

As to the Sorities Paradox, it is Premise 2 that is false – one is often at liberty to say that the addition of a single grain creates a heap where there was none before. — Snakes Alive

Absolutely. However,

The delightful thing about the sorites is that it can spring up again from the rubble... — Bongo Fury

Or

sorites reasoning, [...] like a virus, will tend to evolve a resistant strain. — R.M. Sainsbury, Concepts without boundaries

E.g.

the semantics which concern the precise moment when an actual heap of sand is considered to be mere grains of sand, isn't linguistically specified a priori but is decided by speakers on a case specific basis.
— sime

Agreed. But what is the smallest number of grains that would need considering by speakers as a particular case? Is it 1? — bongo fury

I.e.

[1] Tell me, do you think that a competent speaker of English can ever call a particular case of a single grain a heap?

Which might or might not get traction. I for one am inclined to reply,

[2] No, I think that any single grain is far enough away from being a heap in ordinary language as to make it an obvious case of a non-heap, for any competent speaker.

But if you, on the other hand, prefer

[2] Well, certainly, a single grain is simply the least in a series of cases ordered according to the acceptability of 'heap' as an English descriptor.

... then of course, game over.

We might agree, in passing, that your rejection of P2 has not, as an epistemicist's might well have done, survived into the new round of the game. You have ditched P1, after all. A single grain is a minimal heap. Black is minimally white. Etc.

A heap denotes a number of things. — Cheshire

It has distinguishable senses, like all sorts of words. The puzzle as usually conducted inspires (often) recognition of a sense agreed for the game. With clear examples and counter-examples, and an implication of some kind of boundary. What kind being the puzzle.

Out of respect for the victims of some disaster? Ok. But not for any reason relevant to the puzzle.

But why shouldn't we use terms that are imprecise? — Banno

I already replied to this.

The interesting (and paradoxical) thing is that the clarity is so easily achieved, — bongo fury

It's obvious you only skim, all the time. Never mind.

obviously it's a puzzle if we accept also the premise that calling a single grain a heap is absurd. If calling it a heap is tolerable then, as I keep saying, no puzzle.

[1] Tell me, do you think that a single grain of wheat is a heap?
[2] Well, certainly, it's the very smallest size of heap.

Game over. — bongo fury

The latter way of avoiding play is to reject

P1. a single grain is clearly not a heap — bongo fury

For better or worse. No reform, just bite the bullet of the contrary premise, "everything is a spectrum".

From this point of view, the converse way of avoiding play is to baldly reject, and bite the bullet which is contrary to,

P2. adding a single grain can never turn a non-heap into a heap — bongo fury

Obviously there is a puzzle if we accept P2 (in addition to P1). Whereas, if such a sudden transition is not absurd but tolerable, then, as I would in that case very likely keep saying, no puzzle.

[1] Tell me, do you think that a single grain of wheat is a heap?
[2] No, absolutely not.
[1] And tell me, do you think that adding a single grain could ever turn a non-heap into a heap?
[2] Well, certainly it could, it's just that, for somewhat technical reasons, we can probably never discover which grain that is.

This second way of spoiling the game at the outset is what the OP is (I expect) referring to as 'epistemicism'. Just thought I'd sketch (or caricature) it out.

Although language is a human construct, — Nigel Warburton, aeon article

So far so reasonable...

that does not make it transparent to us. — Nigel Warburton, aeon article

Well yeah but that surely doesn't mean there's anything definite there, for us to see or fail to see, does it?

Like the children we make, the meanings we make can have secrets from us. — Nigel Warburton, aeon article

Woah. What just happened. Provocation? Fair enough then. Nice.

There is no puzzle. — Michael

obviously it's a puzzle if we accept also the premise that calling a single grain a heap is absurd. If calling it a heap is tolerable then, as I keep saying, no puzzle.

[1] Tell me, do you think that a single grain of wheat is a heap?
[2] Well, certainly, it's the very smallest size of heap.

Game over. — bongo fury

Less interesting, but correct. — Michael

Yes. Lazy. Assuming straw men.

This doesn't show some paradox about the metaphysics of identity or whatever — Michael

What, like essentialism? Who brought that up?

A language that doesn't have a word comparable to "heap" doesn't "fail" to refer to some "real" identity inherent in — Michael

Enough metaphysics! Solve the puzzle.

The implicit premise is "if P1) a single grain is clearly not a heap and P2) adding a single grain can never turn a non-heap into a heap then C) heaps can't exist". — Michael

No, that's implicit logic. Requiring iteration of the usual, implied, kind. "Step by step". Grain by grain. Or recursion. But not another premise.

However this implicit (essentialist) premise is false. The existence of heaps does not depend on there being a specific number of grains that qualifies a collection as a heap. — Michael

That's not what you just called an implicit premise. And all it amounts to is incredulity at the conjunction of the premises with C. (= P3.) Fine. That's what people are generally content to call paradox. A worthy game. A demonstration that apparently innocuous premises are incompatible and need reform.

You have a hunch that my P2 hides essentialist dogma. Fine. Perhaps that enables you to suggest a suitable reform? "Nothing to see here folks" is less interesting.

And there's no specific generation where a proto-human gave birth to a human. Would you say that there's a paradox of speciation? — Michael

Another good example.

And another.

There's no contradiction or paradox there. — Michael

I don't understand. Are you saying they are, all 3, compatible, as they stand and appear to signify?

There is, however, perhaps implicit in the argument that to become a heap there must be a point at which adding a single grain "turns it into" a heap, but that would be essentialism which ought be rejected. — Michael

Garbled? What are you saying might perhaps be implicit in what?

There are good piano players and bad piano players, but you can't look at someone's progress from bad piano player to good piano player and point to a specific instant where they "became" good. — Michael

Yes, this is the paradox? If parsed into a plausible set of premises, and subjected to logical iteration? You are familiar with how this is generally done?

There's only a "paradox" if you insist on the truth of contradictory premises — Michael

Yes, but the premises, that we are obliged to reject or reform at least one of, are, rather:

P1. a single grain is clearly not a heap

P2. adding a single grain can never turn a non-heap into a heap

P3. heaps exist

Please clarify which, or how.

Well, no, there is no paradox. — Banno

If only.

An excess of precision impairs our actions.

And precision is available, as required. — Banno

Likewise,

Why is linguistic imprecision a problem? "Heap" trades referential precision for flexibility, whilst retaining the necessary semantics for useful, albeit less precise communication. — sime

However,

obviously it's a puzzle if we accept also the premise that calling a single grain a heap is absurd. If calling it a heap is tolerable then, as I keep saying, no puzzle.

[1] Tell me, do you think that a single grain of wheat is a heap?
[2] Well, certainly, it's the very smallest size of heap.

Game over. — bongo fury

But,

The interesting (and paradoxical) thing is that the clarity is so easily achieved, by choosing obvious counter-examples. Which is what the sorites puzzle reminds us of. Occasionally. When it pumps absolutist zeal, so that the game gets started:

[1] Tell me, do you think that a single grain of wheat is a heap?
[2] No of course not, and I know I'm a long way from the smallest number of grains that could possibly be the smallest heap! Far enough that a single grain is an obvious case of a non-heap!

Of course, later on, the same player may feel differently...

[1] Tell me, do you think that a single grain of wheat is a heap?
[2] Well, certainly, it's the very smallest size of heap.

Game over. People often finish up claiming 2 had been their position all along. Perhaps it should have been, and the puzzle is a fraud. — bongo fury

The puzzle is how to avoid arriving at that position [assuming we are indeed determined not to], without denying the validity of any one step along the way. — bongo fury

what can one say about this problem of the valence of what a "heap" actually is. — Shawn

According to me, and contra epistemicism, that it's a voting matter: but not a free vote. So there are three cases: unanimously and obviously a non-heap (e.g. a single grain, otherwise you aren't a semantically competent speaker), controversially a heap, and unanimously a heap (e.g. a million grains). Of course, you may want to throw that back at me, and restart the puzzle:

[1] Tell me, do you think that a single grain of wheat is even vote-ably a heap?

I would hope so.

The delightful thing about the sorites is that it can spring up again from the rubble... — Don Wade

It's fallible, because it needs two opposing intuitions.

Where it leads me is here, if you're interested.

slowly and carefully... — Banno

No comment.

The existence of Pegasus is taken as granted in setting up a discussion of Pegasus. — Banno

Neither slow nor careful.

we all know precisely well what we mean by saying they do or don't exist, and no one is confused. — Snakes Alive

Right, no need for Quine to write On What There Is, then.

The problems only come in when we try to formalize languages talking about these things — Snakes Alive

Hard to see how you got that impression. Quine very deftly traces the problem to ancient puzzles of ordinary language.

I tend to think the issue was definitively settled by the Lewisian analysis from the 70s that made use of Kripkean modal logics, — Snakes Alive

Ok ...

I can't see anything useful in your comment. — Banno

I know.

That doesn't imply that we have two sorts of existence, but that existence can be used for different cases. — Banno

Different cases? Clearly not. Different treatments of the same case. Different senses of "exist". Different sorts.

The cop-out is to allow the meaning by disrespecting the usual implication, and instead multiplying allowable senses of "exist". E.g. "exists mythically", "exists in the fictional domain", etc. — bongo fury

The desperate sophistry is unnecessary if you can overcome your aversion to the study of reference as a relation to things. Merely allow that Santa is not one of the things so related. Study instead the indirect reference to (e.g. mention-selection of) Santa-pictures, beardy-old-man-pictures, real beardy old men etc.

Did someone claim it did? — Banno

There are no fictive folk? — Banno

Okydoke.

Ah, I think I see. Facts not things? Because Tractatus? We probably aren't much help to each other. Anyway my question wasn't very focused. Still. Interesting thread, so thanks.

Btw I'm confused by your employment of "referent", "denotes" and "denoting fact"... please clarify?

You seem to be denying that existential generalisation applies to fiction. — Banno

Not at all. I'm denying that such an application creates a new species of existence, any more than it creates actual unicorns or hobbits.

So, talking about historical or literary facts about Pegasus, isn't as misleading as stating that Pegasus both exists and doesn't. — Shawn

So, to avoid contradiction, you will refrain from denying that 'Pegasus' refers?

A flying horse or species? — Cheshire

No difference. — bongo fury

Two words will suffice: 'real' and 'exists'; — Wheatley

One will do. Any child too smart for their own good knows that distinguishing "existing" from "real" (and from "actual", "subsisting" etc.) is merely,

pretending that its usual meaning is other than it is: which is that certain words are or aren't succeeding in referring to certain objects. — bongo fury

Either way, this puts him in a category along with lies, deceptions and hallucinations: things we can refer to because we have the ability to encode (recall, describe, perhaps agree about) symbols that resemble signifiers but aren't. — Kenosha Kid

Yes, although it's useful to avoid confusing use and mention, as Elgin explains, above.

But is there, in all of Heaven and Earth, a domain of Lord of the Rings, containing hobbits? — bongo fury

There are no fictive folk? — Banno

Literally, obviously not. Don't you care to describe fictive language-use literally?

Mention-selection is one way.

OK, then: who does this? — Banno

A subtler opponent than the believer in fictive entities.

No difference. Not a slip. But if you like,

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

I know you won't accept that 'horse' denotes horses, but...

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

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

Only in a manner of speaking.

that its usual meaning [use] is other than it is: which is [to imply] that — bongo fury

You want "exists" to have one true meaning, — Banno

I don't want to evade the puzzles that it poses by pretending that its usual meaning is other than it is: which is that certain words are or aren't succeeding in referring to certain objects.

And the challenge is to allow meaning in the myth (or fiction) while respecting the usual implication.

The cop-out is to allow the meaning by disrespecting the usual implication, and instead multiplying allowable senses of "exist". E.g. "exists mythically", "exists in the fictional domain", etc.

"Pegasus is a myth" implies that there is a Pegasus. — Banno

Spoken by certain philosophers, maybe. Usually, it implies the opposite.

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

Yes, it's true, your mind is essentially male or female, or somewhere in between.

What part is a lie? — Benkei

There are two kinds of sex - mental and physical. — TheMadFool

So, lies to children? Or, pinned up only in the comparative religion class, along with pictures of spirits and souls and angel/devil psychology?

@fishfry — Ben Ngai

Actually doesn't work without (invisible) quotes around the name, after the @. The @ button does it for you.

gender-related brain factors — Joshs

Shirley, philosophers should be dismantling cultural myths, not mantling them, or encouraging psychiatrists to mantle them.

their gender identity or expression — Michael

Shirley, philosophers should be dismantling cultural myths, not mantling them, or encouraging psychiatrists to mantle them.

it's a decent syllogism. — TheMadFool

Oh, come on.

your independent view — Tiberiusmoon

D'oh. But Russell's.

The point of philosophy is to start with something so simple as not to seem worth stating and to end with something so paradoxical that no one will believe it — Russell, 1918

I guess that we need to know exactly what argument Matt was presenting. Right? — Need Logic Help

And there may be no incontrovertible fact about this matter. But you'd have to be disingenuous or mad to think that P1 was best formulated as,

P1: All things X cares about are things that are logically objective — TheMadFool

rather than the other way round. That way, of course the whole argument is invalid. And you wouldn't need any medievalisms (about distributed middles) to show it. Just use a Venn diagram.

Whereas actually,

C follows, unless you want to get bogged down in a bigger and more controversial logic (one of belief). — bongo fury

Or unless you have chosen a bizarre and foolish presentation of P1. Then you are bogged down in a spurious and inexplicable representation of what was said. Which is no better than a spurious injection of modal logic.

If it is true that Tom cares about all objective truths, and also true that Tom does not care about Y, then we can conclude that Y is not an objective truth. — Bartricks

Yes.

If - if - Dilahunty made this argument:

1. If P then Q
2. Not Q
3. Therefore not P

Then his argument was valid. — Bartricks

Yes, and he probably did. See above.

The superman example is different. — Bartricks

Please not. You're inviting the enthusiasts for modal logic to show off, and end up perpetuating the silly libel of a logical error.

thinking in the same way as Aristotle (roughly 2 millennia ago) and Gottlob Frege (approximately a century ago). That's like going to a modern pharmacy with a prescription made out by none other than Hippocrates — TheMadFool

No, it's like knowing what you're talking about.

So does P1 fail or does it not? If it fails, why? — Need Logic Help

Because,

"There are more objective logics in heaven and earth than are cared about in X's philosophy." — bongo fury

If not, why not? — Need Logic Help

Because all of them are cared about by X.

If P1/P2 are correct in what you laid out, — Need Logic Help

Assuming you mean, if they are a fair presentation of the premises actually being asserted,

then does C follow? — Need Logic Help

Sure.

If not, — Need Logic Help

I take it you mean, if they are the actual premises being asserted, but C doesn't follow,

doesn't there need to be some error of logic? — Need Logic Help

Yes. But there isn't. C follows, unless you want to get bogged down in a bigger and more controversial logic (one of belief). I've presented the premises in such a way that you can dispute them, rather than the logic.

And if P3/P4 are correct in what you laid out, then does C follow? If not, doesn't there need to be some error of logic? — Need Logic Help

Likewise.

A lot will depend on whether you think it beneficial to involve a logic of belief. If not, or else at least to help decide, let's make the parallel as clear as possible:

P1: All logics that are objective are cared about by X
P2: Logic Y is not cared about by X
C: Logic Y is not objective

P3: All men that are Supermen are believed by Lois Lane to fly
P4: Man Clark Kent is not believed by Lois Lane to fly
C: Man Clark Kent is not a Superman

In both cases, there's no logical error except perhaps a choice-of-logic error: you might decide you must affirm both premises yet reject the conclusion. Because for example you are too polite to question P1/P3. Then you're gonna need a bigger (and more controversial) logic. But questioning P1/P3 is simpler.

the issue is that maybe Y really is part of objective logic but X doesn’t know it. — Need Logic Help

And the simplest way to make that point is just to say that P1 fails. "There are more objective logics in heaven and earth than are cared about in X's philosophy." No need to get modal on his ass, and call it a (necessarily exotic) logical error, rather than a (simple) factual one.