Rick,
I don't at the moment think we diagree as such, but that's because I don't
think what you are saying is an intelligable opinion. Even you can't think
what you think you think. Being an exception and being not included are
just *different* things so far as rules are concerned. You are mixing them
up, and, in a disputational frame of mind, not pausing to consider the
confusion you are in. Go back and take another look at my last post and
address that.
Do you address that post in this one? No.
> RICK: Brevity appreciated, I will try to return the favor.
>>
>> RICK WROTE:
>>> I have been taught that to label a rule as "self- contradictory" where
> the
>>> only thing that violates a rule is its own expression is to commit the
>>> logical/rhetorical fallacy of "self-inclusion"--- the inclusion of the
> hidden
>>> premise that "logic demands rules always include themselves".
>>
>> ELEPHANT:
>> I still think you are confused.
>
> RICK: I know you do, but I don't think I am. I understand the point your
> trying to make. I simply don't think it's really on the point. I'll try to
> make it clearer if I can... First, I think the examples with hangmen and
> your pseudonym are spurious...
ELEPHANT:
Helpful people would insert an argument for that claim. My examples were
not exactly parrallel, but they are not spurious either, because what they
show is that in the case of rules there is a difference between the concept
"self-reference", the concept "self-inclusion", and the concept
"self-exception". I argued that you are confusing all three together and
that this is the cause of your problems. If you can't grasp the very
unspurious relevance of that point then I give up.
RICK:
>... The problem we're addressing deals with the
> linguistic confusion surrounding rules which are seemingly rendered "false"
> or "illogical" solely by their own expression....
ELEPHANT:
Never doubted it.
RICK:
> A man woke up one morning and looked about world. He noticed that there was
> not one single rule which did not have an exception. But the moment he said
> so, it became untrue...?
ELEPHANT:
You went wrong at the start. It ain't possible to look at the world and
discover there that not one single rule has no exceptions. Period. More
patiently: whether or not the claim "all rules have exceptions" is true is
not an empirical matter but a logical one. One cannot take empirical
evidence on the existence of square circles, and this case of your rule is
exactly analogous (no, this parallel is NOT spurious, as I have argued the
contradiction inherent in your rule several times over).
RICK:
> Logically, there can be no rules in the universe without exceptions until
> one tries to say that such is the case.
ELEPHANT:
I find this claim bizarre, but fascinating. You are basically extending to
the realm of logic the observation we have made about particular objects of
static quality: viz that they are what they are in virtue of our evaluative
thoughts. This extension cannot begin to make sense. Logic cannot be what
it is in virtue of our thoughts, or it wouldn't be logic. Our thoughts are
what they are in virtue of, within the bounds of, logic. Period. It's only
this common ground of logic that makes it possible for me to point out that
what you are saying doesn't make sense. And if you now think logic and the
question of what rules can exist simply comes down to what we happen to say,
then I fail to see the point in your attempting to engage with my argument
(although perhaps this is the reason why you do not do so).
RICK:
> Logically, there can be no
> absolutes in the universe until one tries to say that such is the case. The
> problem created is not one of logic, but one of expression; a shortcoming of
> language, not a shortcoming of reason....
ELEPHANT:
The idea that language can be distinguished from reason is false. Perhaps
the falsest thing it is possible to imagine. What are you thinking, that
there is Language, and then there is this other thing 'language of reason'?
No wonder I find it so hard to make sense of you.
RICK:
> The self-inclusion fallacy is the
> mistake of misidentifying a linguistic problem as a logical problem.
ELEPHANT:
All genuine linguistic problems are logical problems. All logical problems
are linguistic problems. Logic is Language. Period. There isn't Language
on the one hand, and Logic on the other. You think symbolic logic isn't a
language? Pah!
RICK:
> The
> linguistic problem is trickey to solve (There is only one rule with no
> exceptions? The only rule with no exceptions is this one? This is the only
> rule with no exceptions?). But the self-inclusion fallacy liberates the
> logical thought from its awkward expression by relieving the statement of
> its linguistic circularity.
ELEPHANT:
If you really think you're liberating yourself from language here, then you
are liberating yourself from language in that sense which is best expressed
in the following short phrase: talking gibberish.
I still can't find your description of this particular 'fallacy of self
inclusion' in any book I've ever known, and none of my philosophical mates
seem to have the slightest idea what you are talking about either. The
question you always have to ask yourself, if you want to do philosophy, is:
do *you* have any idea what you are talking about? Well, do you?
Look, you can't relieve a rule of circularity, if that rule is a rule about
rules. Being circular in that way is just what being a rule about rules
amounts to. Period. And: THE END.
Elephant
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