Re: Philosophy general debate

[djf500@york.ac.uk]

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Hi,

I've go to comment on the suggestion about trees (and i'm sorry i've 
replied in two emails). Here's how I see the argument going...

1) A 'No trees are plants'.

2) B 'Here is an oak, it is a tree and a plant, therefore some trees are 
plants'

3) A 'No, if you say it's a tree, then it can't be a plant'.

The point of arguments are to convince people: holding (1), A can't accept 
B, despite it being something most would accept with question. So, until 
you remove (1), A can't accept (2) because...

A holds (1), and so wouldn't accept the premise 'it is a tree and a plant'. 
The confusion here is, I think, that people think it analytic for a tree to 
be a plant. But in an argument where that is not in place, and is denied 
explicitly, that needs to be established first - you might even have to 
resort - a la A.J. Ayer on ethics - to saying 'look you idiot of course 
trees are plants! that's part of what being a tree is!'. If this, or 
something else convinced A, there would be a commitment to denying (1), and 
the argument would run.

P.S. NB that the single counter-example only proves the negation of the 
universal (1) - it's only existentially quantified - , but in order to 
accept it as a counter-example we need to be convinced that tree/plant is 
analytic, which comes out (surely) as a universal (i.e. all trees are 
plants) and so is already capable of negating (1), which renders the 
individual counter-example superfluous.

Cheers,
Daniel






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