About Me

I am a PhD student in Philosophy at Peking University, now staying at Universität zu Köln, Germany. My interests are primarily in Philosophy of Mind, Epistemology and Analytic Phenomenology. Now I am working on my Dissertation: Method, Intentionality, and Knowledge--An essay in analytic phenomenology. --------- I also have substantial interest in Early Modern Philosophy, Political Philosophy and Ethics.

Sunday, July 5, 2009

Hillel's Argument against Husserl's View Concerning Logical Grammar and Objections.

Hillel is a major Disciple of Carnap.
Argument 1: "I shall state these respects somewhat dogmatically here, as I already discussed this question at some length elsewhere. First, it is simply not the case, at least not prima face so, that an adjec- tival matter appearing in a significant text can never be replaced by a nominal matter, yielding again a significant text. It is beyond doubt that 'this tree is a plant' is significant and still is obtainable from 'this tree is green' by just such a replacement."
Objection
S1. This tree is a plant.
S2.This tree is green.
Well, Hillel's step must involve replacements of two meanings to make "this tree is green" significant. He must replace "is" in S2 the "property-signifying" sign with "is" in S1 the "individual-species-signifying" sign. And he must replace "green" with "plant". The first step is obviously very important, otherwise, "This tree" would be an individual belonging to the species of Green, which will be a shade of green, say, Green.24. Which will not be significant at all.
S1 and S2 are of seemingly identical grammatical structure, but grammar is surely of some importance for logical investigation, but it is no sure guidance for investigation into significance, logical meanings, etc.

Argument 2: The terms 'sentence,' 'significant,' 'silly,' and 'ridiculous' are not sufficiently univocal to attach much significance to the results of a questionnaire in which the testees will have to tell whether according to their intuition the word-sequence 'this algebraic number is green' is a sentence and, if so, whether it is non-significant or significant but silly or ridiculous. Husserl's assertion that "through the free replace- ment of matters within their category there may result false, silly, or ridi- culous meanings (whole sentences or possible sentence-parts), but still necessarily unitary meanings... ," as a factual statement, is therefore of doubtful validity.

Objection: Simple, who says Husserl's statement is a factual statement in the sense that"#is green hot# is meaningless or absurd" is a factual statement? It might well be an apriori statement. If there is no such statement as apriori statement, such statements are different from factual statements.

Philosophy and Phenomenological Research. Vol.17.

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