Study Questions - Quine
1. What is Occam’s razor? What other names are there for this principle?
Occam’s Razor is the principle that between equally plausible explanations, the simpler should be chosen. This is also called parsimony in science and KISS in everyday life.
2. What is McX’s initial argument? Give a rigorous formulation of it, in a general form (i.e. without referring to the particular case of Pegasus). Which premise in your view is the weakest one – and why?
McX’s argument:
1. If one can talk about x, then x exists.
2. Quine claims x doesn’t exist.
3. If you make a claim including x, then you can talk about x.
4. Quine can talk about x. (3, 2)
5. x exists. (1, 4)
I believe that premise 1 is the weakest. It is clearly the most controversial. Quine wants to talk about Pegasus without committing to Pegasus’s existence. McX replies that we have to be talking about something when we talk about Pegasus, and what would that be, but Pegasus? However, premise 1 commits us to the existence of Santa Claus, Sherlock Holmes, Zeus, and a host of other non-existent figures. For that reason, I believe that it is the weakest.
4*. Description of the imaginary Wyman’s view introduces a short discussion of the use and abuse of the word “exists”. What is the confusion that arises from consideration of space-time? How does it have an impact on the application to or denial of “exist” to the Parthenon, Pegasus, and the cube root of 27? Is this something Quine is accusing Wyman of? If so, how does it lead to Wyman’s view?
Wyman mistakenly thinks that Quine thinks existence applies only to spatio-temporal objects. To remedy this, he suggests that objects Quine thinks don’t exist actually do exist as unactualized possibilities: non-spatio-temporal entities. The problem here is that when we consider the cube root of 27, we are faced with a dilemma without an obvious solution: is the cube root of 27 actualized or an unactualized possibility? For Quine, some things include a spatio-temporal aspect in their description, and some don’t. Quine is accusing Wyman of believing that only objects with dimensions really exist.
10*. Quine wants us to “reprase” ‘Pegasus’ as description, in any way that seems adequately to single our our idea. Is he falling into the confusion, which he earlier criticized, of thinking that people are referring to a “mental Pegasus-idea” (page 4b) when they are talking about Pegasus? If not, what is he saying?
At first glance, Quine does seem to be veering back towards Wyman’s view when he explains the case of Pegasus. However, he does not confuse the Pegasus with the Pegasus idea. Quine’s claim is that Pegasus can be properly translated as something like “The winged horse who came from the neck of Medusa”. The fact that we now have a descriptive phrase throws some for a loop; after all, it does seem that Pegasus has become a set of words or an idea. However, Pegasus the entity is not claimed to be identical with the phrase “the winged horse who came from the neck of Medusa.” Rather, the *name* “Pegasus” is identical with the phrase “the winged horse who came from the neck of Medusa”. If Quine were falling into Wyman’s trap, he would be claiming that the name “Pegasus” is identical to “the idea of the winged horse who came from the neck of Medusa.” Quine, in reality, has kept the attribute of actualized spatio-temporality in his definition (if we grant that winged horses are a type of horse, and all horses have spatio-temporality).
11*. What is the source of the translation of “Pegasus” into a description? How is it justified? Is there a correct translation?
The source of the description of Pegasus is Greek mythology; specifically, the myth of Perseus. This source is justified because (as far as we know) the creation of both the Pegasus-idea and the description of Pegasus is Greek mythology. There is exactly one correct definition of Pegasus, just as there is exactly one definition of every truncated definite description. Our various attempts to define Pegasus will come close in different distances to the actual description, but there is one definition. Evidence for this comes from the fact that we can, in fact, judge translation attempts of “Pegasus” as better or worse. There must be some standard to measure against.
13**. If you’re Quine, are there genuine names? How are they identified?
For Quine, the only names are pronouns, paradoxically enough. On page 9a, he states that “I have shown… that names can be converted to descriptions, and Russell has shown that descriptions can be eliminated. Whatever we say with the help of names can be said in a language which shuns names altogether.” Names are actually real names only when the speaker and hearer have experience with the object named. I would like to find a more charitable reading of Quine, one that includes a priori knowledge, and real names for abstract entities, but the finding of such a reading is beyond my powers.
Occam’s Razor is the principle that between equally plausible explanations, the simpler should be chosen. This is also called parsimony in science and KISS in everyday life.
2. What is McX’s initial argument? Give a rigorous formulation of it, in a general form (i.e. without referring to the particular case of Pegasus). Which premise in your view is the weakest one – and why?
McX’s argument:
1. If one can talk about x, then x exists.
2. Quine claims x doesn’t exist.
3. If you make a claim including x, then you can talk about x.
4. Quine can talk about x. (3, 2)
5. x exists. (1, 4)
I believe that premise 1 is the weakest. It is clearly the most controversial. Quine wants to talk about Pegasus without committing to Pegasus’s existence. McX replies that we have to be talking about something when we talk about Pegasus, and what would that be, but Pegasus? However, premise 1 commits us to the existence of Santa Claus, Sherlock Holmes, Zeus, and a host of other non-existent figures. For that reason, I believe that it is the weakest.
4*. Description of the imaginary Wyman’s view introduces a short discussion of the use and abuse of the word “exists”. What is the confusion that arises from consideration of space-time? How does it have an impact on the application to or denial of “exist” to the Parthenon, Pegasus, and the cube root of 27? Is this something Quine is accusing Wyman of? If so, how does it lead to Wyman’s view?
Wyman mistakenly thinks that Quine thinks existence applies only to spatio-temporal objects. To remedy this, he suggests that objects Quine thinks don’t exist actually do exist as unactualized possibilities: non-spatio-temporal entities. The problem here is that when we consider the cube root of 27, we are faced with a dilemma without an obvious solution: is the cube root of 27 actualized or an unactualized possibility? For Quine, some things include a spatio-temporal aspect in their description, and some don’t. Quine is accusing Wyman of believing that only objects with dimensions really exist.
10*. Quine wants us to “reprase” ‘Pegasus’ as description, in any way that seems adequately to single our our idea. Is he falling into the confusion, which he earlier criticized, of thinking that people are referring to a “mental Pegasus-idea” (page 4b) when they are talking about Pegasus? If not, what is he saying?
At first glance, Quine does seem to be veering back towards Wyman’s view when he explains the case of Pegasus. However, he does not confuse the Pegasus with the Pegasus idea. Quine’s claim is that Pegasus can be properly translated as something like “The winged horse who came from the neck of Medusa”. The fact that we now have a descriptive phrase throws some for a loop; after all, it does seem that Pegasus has become a set of words or an idea. However, Pegasus the entity is not claimed to be identical with the phrase “the winged horse who came from the neck of Medusa.” Rather, the *name* “Pegasus” is identical with the phrase “the winged horse who came from the neck of Medusa”. If Quine were falling into Wyman’s trap, he would be claiming that the name “Pegasus” is identical to “the idea of the winged horse who came from the neck of Medusa.” Quine, in reality, has kept the attribute of actualized spatio-temporality in his definition (if we grant that winged horses are a type of horse, and all horses have spatio-temporality).
11*. What is the source of the translation of “Pegasus” into a description? How is it justified? Is there a correct translation?
The source of the description of Pegasus is Greek mythology; specifically, the myth of Perseus. This source is justified because (as far as we know) the creation of both the Pegasus-idea and the description of Pegasus is Greek mythology. There is exactly one correct definition of Pegasus, just as there is exactly one definition of every truncated definite description. Our various attempts to define Pegasus will come close in different distances to the actual description, but there is one definition. Evidence for this comes from the fact that we can, in fact, judge translation attempts of “Pegasus” as better or worse. There must be some standard to measure against.
13**. If you’re Quine, are there genuine names? How are they identified?
For Quine, the only names are pronouns, paradoxically enough. On page 9a, he states that “I have shown… that names can be converted to descriptions, and Russell has shown that descriptions can be eliminated. Whatever we say with the help of names can be said in a language which shuns names altogether.” Names are actually real names only when the speaker and hearer have experience with the object named. I would like to find a more charitable reading of Quine, one that includes a priori knowledge, and real names for abstract entities, but the finding of such a reading is beyond my powers.
posted by Joshua Frear at 11:09 PM
1 Comments:
Good point. Maybe (1) isn't that implausible, after all. All the things I think make (1) implausible: Pegasus, Santa Claus, Sherlock Holmes... these exist as ideas, or we wouldn't be able to talk about them. The common imagination (or something like that) places constraints on the attributes of those imaginary individuals.
However, I think Quine anticipates this in his argument. He goes on, after talking about McX, to distinguish between Pegasus-the-winged-horse and Pegasus-the-idea. In the same way, I would distinguish between x and x-the-idea.
As long as x doesn't already refer to an idea, then I think this covers that potential reply by McX.
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