Topic: Interconnections
The Same and the Different
In the blog Prior Knowledge I have found this curious post:
Identity
This time a question. Is there anything more fundamental than identity? It seems to me that, at least from our epistemic situation, the most fundamental thing is identity; without identity then all that follows cannot not make any sense.
During a certain period, a movement called Philosophical Grammar proposed that the true form of all sentences were identity statements of the kind x=y. Thus (1) below would actually be (1'):
(1) Cain killed Abel.
(1') Cain is the killer of Abel.
Indeed, discourse analysis theories may be derived simply from the conversational paradigm the same versus the different. Accordingly, to analyse a conversation or discourse, one separates the different claims of each interlocutor into two classes: claims that say that certain things are the same, and claims that say that other things are different. But the question that will always follows is: then what?
Although the idea that identity statements underlie all sentences and discourse might probably be true, it has been the kind of observation that never allowed linguists (or grammarians) to do much besides that. And, to complicate things, modern linguists already knows that there is not a precise and sound way to prove that rather it is (1) that is the true form of (1').
On the other hand, the notion of truth seems to me the most fundamental notions of all, if there is one single thing that is the most fundamental of all. Thus, these are questions of a kind that cannot be answered, their fascinating nature notwithstanding.
Posted by Tony Marmo
at 00:01 GMT
