From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.ecf!utgpu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!mips!think.com!wupost!micro-heart-of-gold.mit.edu!bloom-beacon!eru.mt.luth.se!lunic!sunic!seunet!kullmar!pkmab!ske Thu Apr 16 11:33:57 EDT 1992
Article 5037 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Xref: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca sci.philosophy.tech:2527 comp.ai.philosophy:5037
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>From: ske@pkmab.se (Kristoffer Eriksson)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech,comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Reference (was: A rock implements every FSA)
Message-ID: <6752@pkmab.se>
Date: 8 Apr 92 22:21:28 GMT
References: <1992Apr1.081958.10553@husc3.harvard.edu> <6741@pkmab.se> <1992Apr6.114955.10762@husc3.harvard.edu>
Organization: Peridot Konsult i Mellansverige AB, Oerebro, Sweden
Lines: 44

In article <1992Apr6.114955.10762@husc3.harvard.edu> zeleny@zariski.harvard.edu (Mikhail Zeleny) writes:
>N.B.  I haven't answered your article about semantics simply because there
>seems to be nothing to say,

Ah, at last I have confirmation that you have seen that article at all.
It is kind-of hard for the sender to see the difference between non-receipt
and received-but-discarded with our current e-mail and news systems.

Also, by not answering at all, I can't know whether you don't answer
because you agree or because you disagree or because you're not interested,
and it deprives me of any opportunity to straighten out misunderstandings
(or to learn more, if things would turn out that lucky).

> beyond reiterating that your quasi-Russellian
>view admits the possibility of referring to phenomenal data only.

If it does admit any kind of reference at all, I think I may have disproved
the assertion of your's that I originally reacted to.

However, if you mean that the previous iteration of this was your statement
that "logically proper names can only denote such entitities as we are
directly acquainted with, i.e. sense-data, universals, and our selves." then
it is not much of an answer since my previous article already attempted to
address that objection. You can't refute an answer by reiterating your
original statement, as if nothing happened. There are more constructive
ways to do that, for instance pointing out what you disagree with in the
answer.

My argument was basically that it would be possible to refer to the things
that cause, or could cause, your phenomenal experience by using a description
of those things based on the phenomenal data that they case, or could cause.
(That's a "causal connection"!) Furthermore, I claim support for this view
in your own explanation of the insufficiency of purely denotative and purely
connotative signs, since you have there already admitted most of these
mechanisms as possible, except that you just didn't connect them to each
other in order to solve the problem as a whole. Thus my position is that
you can not deny my conclusion without either dropping some of your own
original argumentation, or show a logical flaw in my reasoning. (That's
what makes it interesting.)

-- 
Kristoffer Eriksson, Peridot Konsult AB, Hagagatan 6, S-703 40 Oerebro, Sweden
Phone: +46 19-13 03 60  !  e-mail: ske@pkmab.se
Fax:   +46 19-11 51 03  !  or ...!{uunet,mcsun}!mail.swip.net!kullmar!pkmab!ske


