Reading this, I cannot help but think first of Hans Vaihinger's Philosophie das Als-ob, which deals with fictive entities, such as mathematical objects. But primarily Meinong is called to mind, with his distinction of Dasein, Sosein, and Aussersein, based on the notion that inexistent entities must nevertheless have some sort of being, not just tables and chairs, but possibles such as the Golden Mountain or Pegasus or -- Russell's obvious favorite, the present King of France, and impossibles, such as round squares, on the ontological ground that there must be something to represent, in order to be able to represent them and make assertions about them. To be able to formulate the judgment that 'The present King of France is bald' meant for Meinong that the present King of France must have being at some ontological level or another (i.e have some sort of ontological status, even if he does not exist) in order to be able to formulate the judgment, and assert it, that he's bald. The same must hold, Meinong would argue, even if one were to deny the existence of the present King of France, or the round square. Just being able to take it as a subject of a judgment , to be able to represent it, gives it, ipso facto, some ontological status. Thus Meinong. ... And what Moltke Gram once alliteratively called (if I can remember back to 1970) 'Meinong's muddled metaphysical mire'.
Also going back to 1970, is an anti-Meinongian ontological riff: If Ockham's razor won't kill the bachelor's wife, and Russell's denoting won't describe her to end her life, Try Quine's tomahawk and scalping knife. Irving Anellis > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Jim Piat" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > To: "Peirce Discussion Forum" <peirce-l@lyris.ttu.edu> > Subject: [peirce-l] Re: Existent vs Real > Date: Sat, 18 Feb 2006 10:10:20 -0500 > > > Dea Folks, > > I'm thinking it might be helpful to try to distinguish between the > notions of real and true. One can contrast real with imaginary and > true with false. Some further preliminary thoughts below. As in > maybe--- > > Peirce proposes that being comes in three modes -- the potential, > the actual and the tending toward. He calls all three modes real > -- as opposed to mere fictions, figments of the imagination, or as > some might say nominally real or real in name only. So then what > is a fiction? Fictions, in my view, are category mistakes. As > when when we mistake one catergory of reality for another. For > example, when we miscategorize something that is potentially real > as something that is actually real. > > Mistaking one form of reality for another is the sort of category > mistake we call a fiction. However if we examine the sort of error > we can make within each category of being we come upon the notion > of truth vs falshood. For example to mistake the impossible for > the potential is a falsehood within the potential mode of being. > Likewise to mistake what has occured for what has not occured is a > falsehood within the actual/perceptual mode of being. Finally to > mistake the tending toward for what is not being tended toward is a > falsehood within the category of science. > > The distinction between real and true, that arises from the above > viewpoint, becomes a matter or how both the real and the true are > established. Real is established by dtermining not whether > something conforms to fact or reason but whether or not it has been > rightly classified as potential, actual or tending toward. True, > on the other hand, is a matter that depends upon determining > whether something conforms to observation and logic. > > Put still another way -- Being is divided into three kinds of > reality and within each of these real modes of being (feeling, > reactions, and thoughts) truth can be established by appeals to > observation and logic. To say something is unreal is to say it has > been miscatergorized. To say something is untrue is to say it has > been mistakenly observed or reasoned. > > Maybe-- > > Cheers, > Jim Piat > > And Ben -- I would still want to argue that all of these errors > are at root instances of the general rule that all error is a > matter of mistaking the whole for the part. Error lies not in > misperception but in drawing a false conclusion. And > overgeneralizing from one's personal limited experience to god's > will is in my limited experience the universal error underlying all > errors. In this way all we experience is both true but not the > whole truth. No one is wrong -- but neither is any individual by > his or herself entirely correct. By its very nature of affording > more than one POV the ultimately truth of reality is a property of > the whole and error of the part. Perhaps. > > --- > Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber [EMAIL PROTECTED] > -- _______________________________________________ Search for businesses by name, location, or phone number. -Lycos Yellow Pages http://r.lycos.com/r/yp_emailfooter/http://yellowpages.lycos.com/default.asp?SRC=lycos10 --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com
