The Present Progressive and “to see” etc.
In Longman's texts Talking about the present, and Talking about the Past it is claimed that some verbs cannot be used in the present and past progressive. But they can.…
The Present Progressive and time
What is the present progressive? It is a sentence form. Longman Dictionary of Comtemporary English explains it like this: “You make the present progressive by using a form of the…
Language, truth makers and truth guides
The issue is what the truth maker is of a certain type (subset), L, of propositions. A proposition belongs to L iff it has the form “X is the correct…
Grammatical conjugation with verbs
A little experiment using another style of writing. My inspiration is this short story by Smullyan.1 It is very good. Some background knowledge of epistemology is advised. First is the…
Implying a category error
It sometimes happens that one is analyzing some theory and one discovers that the theory in some sense implies something meaningless. But that doesn’t make sense when we think about…
Meaning, propositions, category errors
I quote Swartz: "What sort of thing is my pen's being on my desk? We are inclined to say such things as "My pen's being on my desk is true,"…
The term non-sequitur
As Wikipedia notes,i the term is used in everyday speech to deny a conditional (if-then statement), and it is also used in logic to mean an invalid argument. This together…
Belief, disbelief; agreement, disagreement
There is often some confusion surrounding the terms: belief, disbelief, agreement and disagreement when used in a philosophical context. We need to keep in mind that normal dictionary definitions are…
Incomplete propositions, time parameters
Dialogue Deleet: Reality changes all the time such that the truth value of propositions change. For instance, the proposition "Deleet is alive" is true right now but it will become…
Problems with definitions
Intro In this very short essay I will argue that certain words cannot be defined by other words, and that certain words cannot be defined by bodylanguage. And if these…