Following through
Posted by LaudateAgno on 2025-January-4 20:09:27, SaturdayIn reply to Re: Propositions posted by diogenes on 2025-January-4 11:52:41, Saturday
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as you set it forth (how well it reflects Russell is a separate issue): "... propositions had to be real entities, since otherwise beliefs, desires and so forth would lack objects. This, however, led to certain difficulties. Suppose, for example, that I believe p is a true proposition, where p happens to be a false proposition. Let us say that p is the proposition that Desdemona loves Cassio. So what is the object of my belief here? Well, the object is the complex Desdemona loves Cassio. However, since Desdemona does not love Cassio, there is no such complex in reality, and thus there is no object of belief in this case." How can one say that p is a "false proposition" while asserting that there is no "complex in reality" corresponding to it? To "it"? What "it?" If you can ascribe truth or falsity to it, then it meets the criterion for being a proposition. To be a proposition is one mode of being, a way to be. Frege was right, and Russell never really contradicted him: senses are real in their own right, and can differ quite independently of their truth value (if they even have one). If everything that exists is spatio-temporal, what do you do with the laws of logic? With the concept of "Truth" itself? * * * Deep examination of our philosophical prejudices is obviously beyond the scope of this discussion, but it is hardly outside the scope of this forum. These prejudices are exactly what interest me, at least, and from what I see, many others, especially as almost every major disagreement on BC boils down to philosophical prejudices. If we can do any work at all in this place to expose the strengths and weaknesses of each other's prejudices, I'd say we're doing something good. (I've learned quite a bit about my own prejudices here, occasionally painfully and with embarrassment...) |
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