Alston Study Questions:
Yoder's Answers
4a-1: According to White, the translations show that one need not assert the existence of abstract entities such as ‘age’ or ‘possibility’ in an utterance to communicate the same information in a less ambiguous manner.
4a-2: He means translations that supposedly reduce the existential status of things that Carnap calls “abstract entities” out of assertions, and communicate in a clearer fashion. In other words, the existential quantification of an abstract entity is said to be eliminated in translation to a supposedly clearer sentence.
4a-3: Because they (existential reduction translations) are simply changing the form of sentences, not their meanings; “it is a question of what he says, not how he says it. Hence he cannot repudiate his admission by simply changing his words” (50).
4a-4*: Yes, their meanings are equivalent, and they do assert the existence of possibilities. Alston writes that you assert the existence of possibilities whenever you make a statement that includes “it is possible that…” or something that asserts the same meaning (In Alston’s view) such as “ the statement that x will y is not certainly false” (47).
4a-5**: No, it is not possible that one could utter x and carry an implication of being about ultimate reality while the other cannot. Consider the following statement; “there is a possibility that we will go fishing”. The everyday speaker’s utterance of this phrase means something like “fishing might be one of the things we do today”. The philosopher might be asserting “there are things called possibilities in the universe and one of the properties of possibilities is that you can attach actions and things to them in order to suggest what might exist, or come to pass (or has existed, or has come and passed; or exists, or is happening as we speak)”. It seems that the fisherman is asserting the ultimate reality of fishing in a similar fashion as the philosopher is asserting the ultimate reality of possibilities. If fishing is something that is a possible course of action, then the implication is that fishing is a reality, a part of “the furniture of the universe”. I am not sure of the status of existence when it comes to ‘things’ like actions or events. Fishing clearly calls into both categories. Actions and events are not tangible in the same way that a rock is, or any object that can be empirically accounted for. I am not sure if events or actions can be empiricized. It seems that they could be analytically accounted for in the same way that numbers can be analytically accounted for. Events and actions seem fundamentally different than other kinds of abstract entities because they have components in the same way as concrete objects.
Back to the point; it is not the same utterance can contain a claim about ultimate reality when uttered by two different speakers because each is asserting the ultimate reality of some thing, even if it is not the same thing. It seems that it is impossible for anyone to issue a statement without asserting some ultimate reality, unless they are incorrect in their statement or being facetious.
4a-14: “The seductive grammatical likeness of 1”. Basically, this sentence’s problem is that is confusing. One shouldn’t talk about possibilities in the same way one should talk about concrete objects like chairs. He even admits this designation is dangerous, but he still makes it.
4a-16: The problem of translation has less to do with the positing of existence of abstract entities as much as the problem of clarity. Ex-redux translations of a sentence can be just as confusing as the original with the existential quantifier of an ab-ent. There is no ontological taint on 1; it is a mistake to assume so when chairs and possibilities don’t exist in the same way. But when possibility’s existence is asserted in the same way as chair’s existence is asserted, it leads to confusion.
4a-1: According to White, the translations show that one need not assert the existence of abstract entities such as ‘age’ or ‘possibility’ in an utterance to communicate the same information in a less ambiguous manner.
4a-2: He means translations that supposedly reduce the existential status of things that Carnap calls “abstract entities” out of assertions, and communicate in a clearer fashion. In other words, the existential quantification of an abstract entity is said to be eliminated in translation to a supposedly clearer sentence.
4a-3: Because they (existential reduction translations) are simply changing the form of sentences, not their meanings; “it is a question of what he says, not how he says it. Hence he cannot repudiate his admission by simply changing his words” (50).
4a-4*: Yes, their meanings are equivalent, and they do assert the existence of possibilities. Alston writes that you assert the existence of possibilities whenever you make a statement that includes “it is possible that…” or something that asserts the same meaning (In Alston’s view) such as “ the statement that x will y is not certainly false” (47).
4a-5**: No, it is not possible that one could utter x and carry an implication of being about ultimate reality while the other cannot. Consider the following statement; “there is a possibility that we will go fishing”. The everyday speaker’s utterance of this phrase means something like “fishing might be one of the things we do today”. The philosopher might be asserting “there are things called possibilities in the universe and one of the properties of possibilities is that you can attach actions and things to them in order to suggest what might exist, or come to pass (or has existed, or has come and passed; or exists, or is happening as we speak)”. It seems that the fisherman is asserting the ultimate reality of fishing in a similar fashion as the philosopher is asserting the ultimate reality of possibilities. If fishing is something that is a possible course of action, then the implication is that fishing is a reality, a part of “the furniture of the universe”. I am not sure of the status of existence when it comes to ‘things’ like actions or events. Fishing clearly calls into both categories. Actions and events are not tangible in the same way that a rock is, or any object that can be empirically accounted for. I am not sure if events or actions can be empiricized. It seems that they could be analytically accounted for in the same way that numbers can be analytically accounted for. Events and actions seem fundamentally different than other kinds of abstract entities because they have components in the same way as concrete objects.
Back to the point; it is not the same utterance can contain a claim about ultimate reality when uttered by two different speakers because each is asserting the ultimate reality of some thing, even if it is not the same thing. It seems that it is impossible for anyone to issue a statement without asserting some ultimate reality, unless they are incorrect in their statement or being facetious.
4a-14: “The seductive grammatical likeness of 1”. Basically, this sentence’s problem is that is confusing. One shouldn’t talk about possibilities in the same way one should talk about concrete objects like chairs. He even admits this designation is dangerous, but he still makes it.
4a-16: The problem of translation has less to do with the positing of existence of abstract entities as much as the problem of clarity. Ex-redux translations of a sentence can be just as confusing as the original with the existential quantifier of an ab-ent. There is no ontological taint on 1; it is a mistake to assume so when chairs and possibilities don’t exist in the same way. But when possibility’s existence is asserted in the same way as chair’s existence is asserted, it leads to confusion.
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