🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1hpqgkINNmi6@cat.cis.Brown.EDU> 
PL436000@brownvm.brown.edu (Jamie) writes:

>>From: zeleny@husc10.harvard.edu (Michael Zeleny)
>>PL436000@brownvm.brown.edu (Jamie) writes:

J:
>>>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.

MZ:
>>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.

J:
>Well, if I was confused before, I am more confused now.

You have my sympathies.

J:
>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.

Correct.  Stratification is a purely syntactical trick.  Rage away,
Randall.

J:
>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?)

A predicate is meaningful, if and only if it expresses a property.

J:
>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.

Well, that depends.  I suggested two interpretations of Grelling's
paradox.  A purely syntactical one is blocked by stratification; on
the other hand, the semantical one does not get off the ground, until
and unless one comes up with a semantics that assigns a predicate
object to the adjective `heterological'.  So there you are.

>Jamie

cordially,
mikhail zeleny@husc.harvard.edu
"Le cul des femmes est monotone comme l'esprit des hommes."