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The Differend

Banno September 18, 2021 at 02:05 1800 views 4 comments
@Joshs convinced me to read The Differend.

Seems appropriate to make a few notes as I go.

Comments (4)

Banno September 18, 2021 at 02:17 #596702
§8 Let p be: you are the victim of a wrong.

A. Either p or ~p

A. If p then ~p

Hence, ~p

The argument in §3 - the editor - looks more cogent than that in §2. there are other witnesses besides the victim. But a book of major importance that was never published is not a book of major importance: If p then ~p. §6 seems to concur.



Protagoras

See Logical Nihilism.

Perhaps Gillian Russell would agree with me that neither Protagoras nor Euathlus has proven their case; that the appropriate interpretation must use at least a three-valued logic.

Also, not too far from Curry's Paradox, in which P is the statement "If P is true, then Q", and paradox ensues.

Might have to have a go at formalising it.
Deleted User September 18, 2021 at 03:39 #596717
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Banno September 18, 2021 at 04:57 #596731
Reply to tim wood
A Differend is posited as a conflict in which cannot be equitably resolved for lack of a rule or judgement applicable to both arguments; and Euathlus' tale is posited as a case in point. But it seems to me we can apply a three-valued logic to reach the conclusion undecided; moreover, in doing so, we are applying a rule.

It could be re-transcribed as follows: Protagoras: if you win you will have won; if you lose even if you say you always lose then you will still have won. the judges are perplexed. Euathlus: if I lose I will have lost; if I win even if I say I always lose then I will still have lost. The judges decide to put off the pronouncement until later .


The judges decision not to decide is justified.

Banno October 02, 2021 at 04:24 #602740
@Joshs

The style manages to be both academically tedious and curiously interesting at the same time.

I'll admit to being perplexed ads to what he is claiming as to the relationship between reference and referent. He quotes Wittgenstein, but seemingly in defence of the notion that language is built from ostension. So, at (70)

...either you were not there, and you cannot bear witness; or else you were there, you could not have seen everything, and you cannot bear witness to everything.


But one might bear witness to something.