🚀 go-pugleaf

>From: zeleny@husc10.harvard.edu (Michael Zeleny)
>PL436000@brownvm.brown.edu (Jamie) writes:
>
>>But, I don't understand how using unreified predicates instead of
>>objects helps avoid set theoretic paradoxes. Grelling's paradox
>>uses only a predicate, and (unless I'm very confused) does not
>>require reification.
>
>You are very confused.  If Grelling's paradox is regarded as purely
>syntactical, then it is unproblematic on a Quinian view that requires
>stratification (as spurious as such a requirement might be); if, on
>the other hand, it is regarded as semantical, then the contradiction
>depends on the assumption that the predicate "...is heterological"
>expresses a _bona fide_ property.

Well, if I was confused before, I am more confused now.

First of all, if a view (Quinean or otherwise) requires stratification
to deal with a purely syntactical predicate, then the issue of
reification is not the salient one. Stratification is a strategy
for eliminating the paradoxes whether the predicates are reified or not.

Second, I have no idea whether "is heterological" expresses a bona
fide property. I care only that whether it is a meaningful predicate.
(What would it express if not a bona fide property? A trope?)

My point was that the Grelling paradox doesn't depend on any
quantification over properties, nor on a semantics that
assigns objects to predicates. It's solution is (must be)
independent of the question of reification.

Jamie