Wednesday, March 12, 2014

Practical Logicism and Universals

While, according to mainstream Philosophy of Language, the 'Extension' of a word is all the entities that exemplify it, its 'Intension' is a noumenon shared by all its usages.  Now, while a Rationalist can recognize both kinds of Meaning, a rigorous Empiricist should argue that there are no Intensions per se.  Furthermore, corresponding to the distinction is the interpretation of Universal terms as either Nominalist or Platonist, i. e. as Meaning only all its instances vs. Meaning some Idea.  So, though the Language of Philosophy tends to be Universalistic, it can be ambiguous, depending on the orientation of the specific Philosopher, e. g. when the Empiricist Locke speaks of 'quality', he can only mean every sound, color, etc., while Kant means by it a Category.  In contrast, according to Practical Logicism, the sentences of which are fundamentally Proposals, the distinction is irrelevant.  For, Meanings therein are stipulative and operational, and, therefore, are neither Extensional nor Intensional, the latter not to be confused with 'Intentional'.  Likewise, the Practical Logicist function of a Universal formulation is to establish a general criterion of Conduct, i. e. is Prescriptive and Legislative.  Accordingly, since it, in itself, lacks Extension, it is not Nominalist, and, since it is verbal, is not Platonist.  Rather than representing its particulars, or being in them, it first creates them.

No comments:

Post a Comment