List: > On Oct 18, 2017, at 11:06 AM, John F Sowa <s...@bestweb.net> wrote: > > Kirsti, >> Possibilities may be real, but they do not exist until they >> become actual. > > In that sentence, three words raise debatable issues: 'real', > 'exist', and 'actual'. To analyze the issues, I suggested Quine's > dictum: "To be is to be the value of a quantified variable."
To analyze the issues (raised by John), I suggest that Quine’s dictum is a red herring “To be is to be the value of a quantified variable” . In that sentence, four words raise debatable issues: “to be”, “value”, “quantified” and “variable”. I suggest that John’s reliance on Quine’s sentence to relate metaphysical terms is highly problematic. The sentence is merely a rhetoric trick to divert the reader’s attention from the distinction between logical propositions (inferred from the terms “quantified” and “variable” (also mathematica propositions!) and individual meanings of terms in constructing propositions in languages and metalanguages. Consider the word “Love” for example. Or, almost any human feeling. Of course, Quine’s sentence also effectively excludes the logics of molecular biology and medicine. which require recursive compositions of terms to operate in multiple metalanguages. Cheers Jerry
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