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Article 3518 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: silber@orfeo.Eng.Sun.COM (Eric Silber)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy,sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: the explanatory trick
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Date: 6 Feb 92 01:32:03 GMT
References: <kou7j3INNaqa@exodus.Eng.Sun.COM> <1992Feb5.005652.8488@husc3.harvard.edu> <kp0ch6INNjk3@exodus.Eng.Sun.COM> <1992Feb5.181155.8523@husc3.harvard.edu>
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In article <1992Feb5.181155.8523@husc3.harvard.edu> zeleny@widder.harvard.edu (Mikhail Zeleny) writes:
MZ:
The explanatory trick
is that a non-material, abstract entity mediates the referential connection
between the name and its denotation.

Okay, thanks for this succinct restatement.  I think I am about to exhaust
my last rumination regarding these 'matters'.  I am certainly susceptible
to the belief that something must MEDIATE the referential connection; 
otherwise, as I believe you have pointed out, one just has a meaningless
physical link.  The scheidepunkt is, of course, the nature of the mediation.
I think that what you refer to as a neccessary, facilitating mediation of
referential connections may be none other than some 'dual' or 'extended'
property of material entities . (I'm just restating my earlier appeal to
the wave/particle duality in physics).  So I end up accepting the
obvious, that SOMETHING MEDIATES REFERENCE, and open to BOTH :
1) the possibility that this mediation is explanable in some consistent
theory as a physical phenomenon
AND
2) the possibility that what you refer to as the 'realm of the ''abstract'' '
may exist as a 'wholly-holy ' other realm which mediates reference.

( however 1) remains to me more plausible at this time )


