tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8861197.post7736784611709020530..comments2023-06-27T16:51:05.805+02:00Comments on The Pangrammaticon: Artificial ImaginationThomashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04858865501469168339noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8861197.post-11023949776288631332014-05-13T14:39:44.222+02:002014-05-13T14:39:44.222+02:00Your confidence about this rattles mine a little. ...Your confidence about this rattles mine a little. But I think my position (which I may now just be repeating) is that the "deviance" you're talking about is only a result of our deeply ingrained Cartesianism. Once we free ourselves of this, we see that attributing intelligence to bodies is just as merely "clumsy" as attributing sunburns to them.<br /><br />It is possible that one source of confusion here is that persons are not, properly speaking, objects and therefore don't have properties. But I have to catch myself there, actually, because "volition" is to people as "intelligence" is to things! Pangrammatically speaking, anyway. And this does lead us somewhere interesting…maybe another post. Thomashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04858865501469168339noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8861197.post-85624231986136439102014-05-13T14:17:27.284+02:002014-05-13T14:17:27.284+02:00Clever use of examples, but they still get it back...Clever use of examples, but they still get it backwards. <br /><br />"Thomas' body is intelligent" is grammatically deviant, because intelligence is not a property of bodies. <br /><br />On the other hand, the examples of the sort you suggest - "Thomas' body is short" or "Thomas' body is sunburned" - are not grammatically deviant. They are just clumsy and more full descriptions than "Thomas is sunburned". To account for their clumsiness, we might say they in violation of Gricean principles. I.e. they give too much information, since it is obvious that it is Thomas' body, which is sunburned, and not, say, Thomas' degree in philosophy. But they are not nonsense; they are perfectly coherent characterizations of objects. <br /> <br />Remember, properties are <i>characterizations</i> of objects, while objects can conversely <i> instantiate </i> properties. Thus we can say that “white” is a property of “Peter's hair” and that “Peter's hair” is an instantiation of “white”. We can also characterize Peter as intelligent, but I cannot force it over my lips to say that “Peter’s body” is an instantiation of “intelligence”. We should in any case not expect to be understood if we decide say to such things.Presskornhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03480116067878605339noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8861197.post-29006544412645162332014-05-12T18:56:59.086+02:002014-05-12T18:56:59.086+02:00But I believe that persons are identical with &quo...But I believe that persons are <i>identical</i> with "their" bodies. (Scare quotes there to indicates that people don't <i>have</i> bodies, i.e., own them, but <i>are</i> them.)<br /><br />We say "Thomas is strong", "Thomas is short", "Thomas is fat", etc. What does that prove? It's the same person that has all these properties. "Thomas is smart" is among them. The referent of "Thomas" is the same in all cases.<br /><br />We don't say, "Thomas' body is strong" but surely strength is a property of bodies?<br />Thomashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04858865501469168339noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8861197.post-31476262847017756802014-05-12T17:24:29.091+02:002014-05-12T17:24:29.091+02:00This is old discussion of ours, but it is all off ...This is old discussion of ours, but it is all off to say that intelligence is a property of bodies. It is a property (if not perhaps rather a propensity) of persons.<br /><br />True, one cannot refer to persons without referring to their bodies (i.e. Descartes was indeed wrong), but that doesn't make intelligence of a property of human bodies. Co-extensionality does not imply sameness of appropriate predicates.<br /><br />Thomas is intelligent. Not: Thomas' body is intelligent. Grammar is excessively clear on this point. wakawakamammahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03946612709840476497noreply@blogger.com