frank

Sounds about right.

I meant that Augustine came up with the use of "person" to talk about the hypostases. I guess so. If you asked an ancient Westerner what makes apples ...

Augustine came up with the word "persons.". He didn't mean for that to be taken literally.

Right.

Ok. One last time. If you say the same wrong thing again, we'll just go our separate ways with no hard feelings, ok? In this analogy, man is a categor...

It's just that you're going to give the same wrong account over and over. One can avoid frustration by walking away. :up:

That's not how the Trinity works. I don't think that message is going to get through to you, so peace, buddy.

He knows more than either of us, but I've known since childhood that Catholics don't believe that God is category that the hypostases belong to. The T...

I agree. But that snippet gives a hint as to why you can't get opacity with behaviorism. You'll end up with a de re reading of everything.

@"Count Timothy von Icarus" already explained why that isn't the Christian view, here I don't think either of you are Catholic, though, so you don't h...

Maybe you could. I'll have to think on it. Anyway, if you're interested, this part of Davidson's argument that we can't tell what dog's believe from R...

We were just talking about referential opacity. I told Bongo that we can't get that with behaviorism. He disagreed. Anyway, it just establishes that i...

Like B.F. Skinner?

:lol:

Oh, I thought we did.

Look at this one: a. Superman is Clark Kent b. Toto the parrot is ready enough to say "Superman can fly" c. Therefore Toto the parrot is ready enough ...

I was talking about Plotinus.

Referential opacity shows up in the identity elimination schema; So we would have: a. Superman = Clark Kent b. Lois is ready enough to say "Superman c...

Christianity is built on Neoplatonism. They believed God is everything.

Bongo and I were discussing whether a behaviorist could arrive at referential opacity. We decided not, but then we examined whether we could define be...

Fine. The use of Logos tells that it's related to Plato, the Stoics, and Philo. The basic idea was that God is everything. That's what Plotinus believ...

The Trinity comes from a Jewish guy named Philo. He believed Greek philosophy actually came from the OT. He believed God is everything.

Fine. You're saying John 1:1 is saying that the Word was with the Father, and the Word was divine. My give a damn is now officially busted.

Try this as your starting point for explaining "is." The Word is Jesus. Jesus was with God, and Jesus was God. Explain it.

@"flannel jesus" called attention to this song from The Book of Mormon. I think it will clarify things. https://youtu.be/_qSkOnu6pBY?si=tY9XknB4tKxdqg...

Ok. You just can't do that if you're defining belief as a readiness to make certain sounds. If Quine contradicts me on that, I'd have to read what he ...

T1 is Superman. It's a rigid designator, which is identical to Clark Kent, also a rigid designator. The b sentence tells us that Lois believes Superma...

Why not?

No, you can't put it in quotes. It has to be: t1 = t2 Lois believes t1 can fly therefore Lois believes t2 can fly I think what you're suggesting is a ...

In this case, the misapplication is so bad you don't even have a substitution failure. You at least have to have t1 in the b sentence. Comport yoursel...

No, you only get referential opacity if there are mental states involved... specifically of a kind a parrot wouldn't have.

You were asking if it would be more surprising if propositional attitudes did not result in substitution failure. I was saying that this would depend ...

How could you tell from watching Ralph's behavior that he's "ready enough to say" something? With behaviorism, we're trying to avoid a God's eye view ...

So we put two flashcards in front of Lois with contradictory sentences on them, and if she nods her head to both, we have referential opacity.

This is in keeping with the traditional Catholic perspective. The Trinity is a mystery beyond human understanding. You alluded earlier to John 1:1. Re...

The IEP article is terrible. I'll try the SEP article.

I was thinking the same thing. Why is there silence on that question?

Sorry, I was vague about that. The OP is from an IEP article on referential opacity. I was struggling to understand all the aspects of it. Davidson's ...

To support that, you'd need to explain how a substitution failure cashes out in terms of behavior.

It depends on how you explain belief. A behaviorist would say that what we call belief reduces to certain actions. Since Clark is Superman, we can sub...

As I mentioned, it's been said that God is like a coffee cup. The handle is an analogy. The mind is the index finger. In other words, the mind can onl...

Thanks for the response. I don't have anything to add.

Sure. All cards on the table, the inspiration for the OP was the fact that there were two open threads attacking the OT, one on the basis that some of...

@"Count Timothy von Icarus" I'm curious if we can start over without hostility or mistrust. If you will, read the following from the New Advent Cathol...

Yes, I misspoke. Leibniz's Law gives us the expectation that we can substitute t1 and t2 in the Identity Elimination Schema (here) The schema itself i...

I'm going to be examining an argument that says language is required for rationality. It's going to be rejecting the idea that dogs have beliefs, spec...

I don't think it's a stipulation in that context. We know what Lois believes because we know the story. It's from the narrator's point of view. That i...

How do you know Lois believes it?

True. Davidson uses referential opacity to make his case that language is required for rationality. So I was just contemplating the background of prop...

Look at this example. We aren't really worried about how we know what Lois believes, whether it was from observing her behavior, or she told us, or we...