'For the person or persons that hold dominion, can no more combine with the keeping up of majesty the running with harlots drunk or naked about the streets, or the performances of a stage player, or the open violation or contempt of laws passed by themselves than they can combine existence with non-existence'.

- Benedict de Spinoza. Political Treatise. 1677.




Saturday, December 20, 2014

Philosophical Grammar 91


91. A search for a particular thing (e.g. my stick) is a particular kind of search, and differs from a search for something else because of what one does (says, thinks) while searching, not because of what one finds. – Contrast looking for the trisection of the angle.



presumably one will do something while searching – whatever one is searching for –
and therefore the details of what one does – says – thinks etc.– could be said to distinguish one search from another

on the other hand – in so far as any search does involve doing something while searching  – and if the details of what one does while searching – are regarded as unimportant – one search is the same as another

‘ “You were looking for him? You can’t even have known if he was there!” (Contrast looking for the trisection of the angle.)’?

I’m not sure there is a contrast here –

trisecting an angle – it can be done in the special case – pi/radians (90 degrees)

you can trisect an arbitrary angle if you cheat by using a measuring ruler instead of a plain straight edge

but to play by the rules you aren’t allowed any marks on the straight edge at all – it must be blank

the problem of trisection in the general case was a mathematical problem since the Greeks

in 1837 the French mathematician Pierre Wantzel proved it was impossible

he showed that the two problems of trisecting an angel and of solving a cubic equation are equivalent –

and he showed that only a very few cubic equations can be solved using the straight-edge-and-compass method –

he deduced that most angles cannot be trisected

so is it too much of a stretch to say that looking for the trisection of the angle – is the same as ‘looking for him’ – you can’t have known if it was there?

this argument works if Wantzel’s argument stands –

that is if his thinking and proof are not put to question – and if no alternative view is forthcoming

regardless of that – this issue – like any issue in mathematics –is open to question – open to doubt –

the bottom line is that when you search for anything – you propose a state of affairs –

any such proposal is uncertain –

and in the event that what you propose comes about – this does not change the logical status of the proposal –

and further – the event – or more correctly – the description of it –

is open to question – open to doubt



© greg t. charlton. 2014