57
votes
Accepted
Is "This sentence is written in English" nonsense?
"This sentence" is an indexical term. An indexical is a term like "I", "today", or "this city" where the reference of the term depends on the context of the ...
- 7,464
46
votes
Accepted
When are semantically non-hostile expressions equivalent to pragmatically hostile ones?
This is related to what is called the illocutionary force of an assertion. So, for example, if you enter the room and I say "there's coffee on the table", I'm not just saying something true, ...
- 5,830
45
votes
Accepted
Is "that nose is fake" nonsense?
You understand what the sentence means; therefore, it is not nonsense. We can perform all sorts of analyses to try to analyse why the sentence is meaningful (e.g. the "nose" refers both to ...
- 1,979
19
votes
Why is it wrong to answer a question with a tautology? Isn't "2+2" correct when answering 'What is "2+2"'?
The teacher's goal when asking is not merely to obtain a correct answer (spoiler alert, because they already know the answer), but for the students to demonstrate knowledge, in order to make sure the ...
- 5,124
19
votes
Accepted
Why is it wrong to answer a question with a tautology? Isn't "2+2" correct when answering 'What is "2+2"'?
The unstated assumption is that the person asking the question is asking for an answer that is in the simplest form. "What is 2+2?" could better be expressed as "What natural number is ...
- 22.8k
17
votes
Why is it wrong to answer a question with a tautology? Isn't "2+2" correct when answering 'What is "2+2"'?
Short Answer
When you use talk about "expressions" and "objects" to which they refer, you are in the domain of semiotics, linguistics, and the philosophy of language.
Semioticians ...
- 22.7k
17
votes
Why isn't the dictum "something can't come from nothing" a matter of consensus?
I disagree with your assertion that physics has nothing to say about this.
There was a time when "nothing" was thought of as a box with no contents. Then it was discovered that it contained ...
- 7,772
16
votes
How can one refute John Searle's "syntax is not semantics" argument against strong AI?
Wittgenstein in his intermediate period provided a response, before the age of AI research and Searle's objections. In a nutshell: semantics is another syntax. Words only mean as role players in a ...
- 42.5k
15
votes
Is the statement "They like curry chicken." an objective or subjective statement?
An objective statement is a statement about "the thing in itself", with reality as is rather than as perceived. The statement "my computer runs Mac OS" is objective.
I start there ...
- 1,573
14
votes
Is "This sentence is written in English" nonsense?
This sentence is written in english.
Cette phrase est écrite en anglais.
These are different sentences; they have different words to each other. An accurate translation of the first sentence into ...
- 1,979
12
votes
Accepted
Do Wittgenstein and Quine give the same criticisms of semantics?
Yes and no. They both criticize a certain approach to semantic theory that can be called realism about meaning. Roughly, realists see meanings as some kind of entities, although there is a wide range ...
- 42.5k
12
votes
Accepted
Are contradictory propositions in the propositional logic still contradictory in the predicate logic?
Something that is a contradiction in the propositional logic remains a contradiction in predicate logic. The problem with your examples is that they are not particularly clear as to whether you are ...
- 22.8k
11
votes
Accepted
Is there a way to avoid Gödel's incompleteness affecting mathematics as a whole?
It is a natural idea, but unfortunately the answer is no, it is not feasible. The root of incompleteness is not numbers, but the possibility of (implicit) self-reference, arithmetic is just the ...
- 42.5k
11
votes
Accepted
Is mathematics a language?
It is more than that. Even if we take the Galileo's metaphor literally, he is suggesting that there is a language of mathematics, specifically geometry, not that mathematics, as such, is a language:
...
- 42.5k
11
votes
When are semantically non-hostile expressions equivalent to pragmatically hostile ones?
It's not morally wrong per se, the sentence sounds after all pretty obvious and could be innocuous in another context.
Yet in the current context it's more often than not a deliberate and childish ...
- 5,124
11
votes
Is "that nose is fake" nonsense?
"Fake" in "fake nose" typically means the nose is artificial (e.g. man-made and surgically inserted), not that it's not a nose.
One might go one step further and say that it ...
- 5,416
10
votes
Why isn't the dictum "something can't come from nothing" a matter of consensus?
Because "something can't come from nothing" leads to infinite regress/explanatory failure when you ask the question, "Where did things come from?"
We will assume that "...
- 236
9
votes
Accepted
How to implement the so called 'principle of charity'?
You are right that reading means interpreting, and we can never be sure that we did not misinterpret the author's intentions. But it is as with any human endeavor, we are fallible. The principle of ...
- 42.5k
9
votes
Is music just another language?
The answer is straightforward in the context of Chomsky's universal grammar, which music does not fit. However, the innate grammar structures postulated by Chomsky were not as universally encountered ...
- 42.5k
9
votes
Is the statement "They like curry chicken." an objective or subjective statement?
The other answers rely on either a non-technical understanding of the terms "subjective" and "objective" or depend on a particular philosophical viewpoint. This answer is viewpoint-...
- 7,464
9
votes
Accepted
Is a non-existent apple not an apple?
I consider a misuse of language to be the source of confusion:
Of course we can form the word “apple” in our mind. It is a concept
invented to denote certains objects, like so many other concepts do.
...
- 24k
8
votes
Accepted
What is put on what (the mayo or the eggs) and why?
Narrowly construed the OP question is easy to answer and is not really philosophical, it concerns the colloquial semantics of "put X on Y". According to which, whatever goes on top or on the surface ...
- 42.5k
8
votes
Why is it wrong to answer a question with a tautology? Isn't "2+2" correct when answering 'What is "2+2"'?
Language is about communication, not formal logic.
Most of the time, a question is asked to gain information. Usually, the information desired is about the subject of the question (e.g. “When's the ...
- 1,979
8
votes
When are semantically non-hostile expressions equivalent to pragmatically hostile ones?
Although Ruyant and armand (and also, in his own way, Gudeman) have addressed the question from most relevant angles, yet per your (the OP's) comment, "I can't really speak about the situation in ...
- 12.3k
8
votes
Accepted
Why do we equate a mathematical object with what denotes it?
Why do we equate a mathematical object with what denotes it?
In your example with the matrix, A is what mathematicians think of as a variable, while what you call the matrix, namely
that you present ...
- 6,242
7
votes
What is Quine's rebuttal to Grice and Strawson's In Defense of Dogma?
Quine's attack on the analytic/synthetic distinction is contained in a series of papers: Truth by Convention, Two Dogmas of Empiricism, Carnap on Logical Truth, and in the early chapters of Word and ...
- 22.8k
7
votes
Accepted
What is Quine's rebuttal to Grice and Strawson's In Defense of Dogma?
It would be to argue against meanings as mental or objective entities. Grice and Strawson rely on meaning as something propositional statement "inherently" has, Quine's position, like late ...
- 42.5k
7
votes
Is music just another language?
In the context of the linked interview, both Chomsky and his interviewer have an understanding of the term "language" that excludes music from it.
To put it as a syllogism:
(P) All language ...
- 5,257
7
votes
Is consciousness information?
The problem with the idea that consciousness lasts forever because information is preserved is in the fact that information is being used in two different senses in your question. The differences lie ...
- 2,841
7
votes
Accepted
Is steam necessarily ice?
Ice is H2O in solid state, and steam is H2O in gaseous state, so neither is H2O simpliciter and necessarily (or even actually) the other. The correct versions will be "the material of ice is ...
- 42.5k
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