From the wiki, Pegasus:
"In Greek mythology, Pegasus (Greek: Πήγασος, Pégasos) was a winged horse sired by Poseidon, in his role as horse-god, and foaled by the Gorgon Medusa.[1] He was the brother of Chrysaor, born at a single birthing."
"By extension, the term Pegasus can also refer to any winged horse."
-- Rather, by what Carnap would have 'by isomorphic intensionalism,' rather -- or not! (Just teasing!).
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JL..Pegasizes! or maybe it's pegasus-phantasizes.
ReplyDeletewouldn't "a winged horse sired by Poseidon, in Greek mythology" be...one of the extensive meanings of Pegasus? the intension the connotation{s}...as you are probably aware. So what are the connotations? (powerful creature that flies...) That always seems a bit open-ended--not to say symbolic--with names, especially mythological entities. Actually not to ...veer near the A-word (..aesthetics) but I suspect Bel. and Peg. are a sort of militaristic image, strength, warriorness, knighthood,etc. Common Meditterranean symbol ,and at times...not lacking a certain primitive beauty..many italian/spanish plazas feature the equestrian motif... (Don Quixote and his ...horse..what's it's name...Don Q. thinks it's a noble steed, Pegasus like....when alas, it's..an old nag. Stewball! On Stewballness)
Yes -- it's a Brit thing. The parachutists call theirselves "Pegasus" during the "Phoney" war -- hence "Pegasus Bridge" of D-Day fame.
ReplyDeleteI can't see how 'winged horse' makes any sense. "winged stallion" either. Horse is a natural kind, alla Locke. "Winged horse" is an oxymoron. Mind: not all Greeks could have been THAT ignorant (some Grecians were possibly Gricean in spirit). I mean: I won't believe that ALL greeks believed Greek myths were true. The Pegasus myth is so ridiculous that most likely, the teller of the myth KNEW it was a downright lie, and most of his auditors! In England, nursery rhymes at least are told to very small children. So why suppose that in Greece people believed those silly tales about a flying 'horse'? I think Plato would have agreed with me that if you believe Pegasus is NOT a vacuous name, there's something wrong with ... your mother!
ReplyDeletewell, perhaps JL. But there are stranger myth-creatures--say the ibis headed deity of the egyptians (Thoth ah believe). Echidna, the monster-snake mama of the greeks. Or Ganesh, still venerated in south india. Can one predicate on elephant-deity Ganesh, or is that just vacuous name too...The locals play some bootay shakin' rhythms to him...
ReplyDeleteErgo the name "Pegasus" does not seem vacuous, even if mythic/symbolic. Really Grice sounds a trifle philistinish AFAIK. Quine wasn't claiming Pegasus existed, right--he's saying a meaning is not implied by naming an object or purported object that doesn't in fact exist. So for all Quine's supposed nominalism, he does suggest Pegasus might mean, have significance, sans an object (or perhaps, via connotations the named "object" pegasus relates to psychology, symbolizing ...something). That doesn't seem the same as calling it vacuous. Or not.
Yes -- "Vacuous Names" is Grice at his phillistinish worst!
ReplyDelete---- "Pegasus" is NOT a vacuous name. No name is vacuous!
He means, designatum-free, or designaturm-less, but as R. B. Jones notes, there are problems here --
If the null set gets into the picture, how can you get it OUT of it?!
Don't now. Im tempted to ask where is it a problem. Maybe some programming application...Im not defending Quine either but...On W.T.I. still seems pretty tight--(I finally understood it a few years ago after 20 years or so...no danke to professors). If some supposed X doesn't exist one's not "committed to an ontology" in Q-speak in saying it doesn't exist--that's just how the language is (that is, assuming, like, plato's heaven...or theology's..doesn't really "exist'). But colloquially speaking many humans would say meaning is reference, or related to it. IN that sense Quine's reading seems counterintuitive (if not..raw meat materialism).
ReplyDeleteI like the idea of meat-materialism. I wonder if 'meat' and 'mat-' as in 'matter' are related. They are not! (But as Socrates said, philosophy starts with wonder).
ReplyDelete-----
Yes, "On what there is" is pretty tight. But you'll have to concede that if I say,
"God as an impossible implausible impotent imperialistic imposing impersonator does not exist" --
I am perhaps saying more than I should!
I would think that if things don't exist for you, why bother to even mention them in "don't exist" claims?
So, I go with Grice's conversational points. If I say, "Pegasus, you idiot, doesn't exist" (to a Greek boy, say), I am saying more than I should. I often wonder if it's not bad to correct people on things they think exist but don't.
Or stuff.
what sort of bugged me (re-perusing Q's klassic whilst at Arbeiten, during something called "yesterday") was his statement that one's NOT committed to an ontology by saying X doesn't exist, but one IS committed to an ontology when saying X exists. Hillary Putnam Im not, but is that...like...accurate? If one says..."ghosts don't exist", One seems to uphold an ontology of a sort (naturalism, of a type). Or say, imaginary numbers...exist (or don't). I'd say one's committed to an ontology...either way, whether you assert Pegasus exists, or He don't...
ReplyDeleteNot sure on that. Say...some logic student at Steinford U, one...Muttzon dashes in a room and mutters..."I saw, saw a ...bat in the ..lavatory!, which is to say...there is a bat in the lavatory!!"" And...a few other students echo his claim....Miss Goneril speaks up..."yes, it's rather common. Bats. Fruit bats. In the lavatories, men and women's"
ReplyDeleteHis Prof., one Dr. Hairy responds...well a simple existence claim, which we can check by inspecting the lavatories. They check them. over a few days. No bats are detected. So, the claim appears bogus. And Muttzon gets a reputation for being ...mendacious, if not hysterical. OK, somewhat ..bizarre, but many other similar situations could be imagined where negative claims (no ghosts. no...say fingerprints of an alleged suspect. no ...DNA, etc) would entail certain conclusions, even serious conclusions--as in court cases. Or scientific research, when there's no conclusions (ie, so end funding, etc)
Even "ghosts don't exist" seems to entail something about reality as a whole, a specific ontology...a ghostless one
Yes. Ghost busters -- the film -- trades on them. On ghosts and their 'manipulated' non-existence.
ReplyDelete"Ghosts don't exist" is like "Souls don't exist". In fact, The Holy Ghost is said to be a soul.
The Greeks called 'soul' psyche. Psyche was also a girl, in the myth, abducted by Cupidus (typically).
I should consider all this.
"Bats don't exist" is different from "bats don't exist in the lavatory".
"Bats don't exist" is different from "bats don't exist in the lavatory".
ReplyDeleteYeah. The point was just...that in most ordinary usages of the ∃-quantifier, ∃(x) attaches to a domain (in this case, lavatory). A point commonly overlooked by logicians who commonly dump...that obscene I-word, implicitly (ie .... Infinity) into their formulae.
It's a rather grand claim to say "there are no Pegasuses in the Universe". Even a genius, Quinestein type only knows a very small section of that U. And really, given finite speed of light ...and any...spacecraft probably not reaching even half-speed of light for many years, if not centuries...we generally wouldn't know either way. In galaxy Andromeda there might indeed be pegasuses, or mythological aliens (or so they seem) on earth-like planets, but we would never know. For that matter is a ..Pterodactyl so different than a flying stallion? In futurity humans might meet pterodactyl-like aliens...To boldly go! er go Boldly! Sort of ...sophomoric, JL, but ∃(x)'s should be used with care (as even Quine..at least early nominalist Q realized)
Yes, rotated "E" should be used with care.
ReplyDelete--- "Handled with care" even --. Not because it is fragile.
Grice was obsessed with contextualism: "There is a book on the table": this table, usually meant. Etc.
----
(Ex) was a rotated E for 'exist'. Similarly, (Ax) is an inverted A -- the one to blame here is Frege.