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>From: entropy@panix.com (Daniel Gross)
Subject: Re: Is there any such thing as informal logic?
Message-ID: <1991Nov8.211818.8871@panix.com>
Date: Fri, 8 Nov 1991 21:18:18 GMT
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References: <1991Oct22.041210.5931@watserv1.waterloo.edu> <JMC.91Nov5212441@SAIL.Stanford.EDU> <1991Nov6.122415.5160@husc3.harvard.edu>
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In this ever-spiralling debate, the very construction of the dialogue has
taken on the form of some of the fundamental issues at stake:

>
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I believe it was Monsieur Zeleny who said recently:

> ...unlike the number x, which (setting aside certain
>difficulties connected with the second-order postulate of
>induction, on which more anon) doesn't in any way depend on its
>successor S(x) for its definition, on a Fregean view, the
>success of our reference to any entity, whether intensional or
>extensional, depends on our grasp of its concept, which in turn
>depends on our grasp on the concept of its concept, and so on....

Would "fuzzy logic" then merely enter the picture in order to
simulate or represent our own (ill)logical ability to absorb
a recursive process without feeling the compelling discrete urge
to enumerate it? But it seems we need not go even so far. A
Fibonacci sequence has an enumerative definition, but we
grasp the concept without the enumeration. If we think of the
enumeration as an instance of the Fibonacci concept, or the
lowest concept in the any concept hierarchy (namely, the thing
itself) then we habitually grasp the concept-of-the-concept
while utterly ignoring the concept. Whence this leap?

For me, this only raises the question of whether a leap
has occured at all....

-- 
  Daniel Gross              \  My opinions ALWAYS
  FLOW Research, Inc.       |  reflect those of my company.
  entropy@panix.com         |  If yours don't, consider quitting.


