summaryrefslogtreecommitdiffstats
path: root/essays/flaws_underlying_beliefs.tex
diff options
context:
space:
mode:
authorphoebe jenkins <pjenkins@tula-health.com>2024-08-21 22:54:46 -0400
committerphoebe jenkins <pjenkins@tula-health.com>2024-08-21 22:54:46 -0400
commit488959552c345ba7686f499707f17756a6bb75b9 (patch)
tree9804756c5c85200b40592af738de0042737cebc3 /essays/flaws_underlying_beliefs.tex
parentfd62335f740d6c90ae361ba7e3b5d562485e2af3 (diff)
downloadblueprint-488959552c345ba7686f499707f17756a6bb75b9.tar.gz
clean up some probably misguided ideas about document splitting
Diffstat (limited to 'essays/flaws_underlying_beliefs.tex')
-rw-r--r--essays/flaws_underlying_beliefs.tex2
1 files changed, 1 insertions, 1 deletions
diff --git a/essays/flaws_underlying_beliefs.tex b/essays/flaws_underlying_beliefs.tex
index 6b7dfcd..d02e6de 100644
--- a/essays/flaws_underlying_beliefs.tex
+++ b/essays/flaws_underlying_beliefs.tex
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-\Chp{The Flaws Underlying Beliefs}
+\chapter{The Flaws Underlying Beliefs}
We begin with the question of whether there is a realm beyond my \enquote{immediate experience.} Does the \textsc{Empire State Building} continue to exist even when I am not looking at it? If either of these questions can be asked, then there must indeed be a realm beyond my experience. If I can ask whether there is a realm beyond my experience, then the answer must be yes. The reason is that there has to be a realm beyond my experience in order for the phrase \enquote{a realm beyond my experience} to have any meaning. Russell's theory of descriptions will not work here; it cannot jump the gap between my experience and the realm beyond my experience. The assertion \speech{There is a realm beyond my experience} is true if it is meaningful, and that is precisely what is wrong with it. There are rules implicit in the natural language as to what is semantically legitimate. Without a rule that a statement and its negation cannot simultaneously be true, for example, the natural language would be in such chaos that nothing could be done with it. Aristotle's \booktitle{Organon} was the first attempt to explicate this structure formally, and Supplement D of Carnap's \booktitle{Meaning and Necessity} shows that hypotheses about the implicit rules of a natural language are well-defined and testable. An example of implicit semantics is the aphorism that \enquote{saying a thing is so doesn't make it so.} This aphorism has been carried over into the semantics of the physical sciences: its import is that there is no such thing as a substantive assertion which is true merely because it is meaningful. If a statement is true merely because it is meaningful, then it is too true. It must be some kind of definitional trick which doesn't say anything. And this is our conclusion about the assertion that there is a realm beyond my experience. Since it would be true if it were meaningful, it cannot be a substantive assertion.