Abstract
The property of being a mixture, the concept of mixture, the predicate ‘is a mixture’, and the physical mixtures themselves present complicated and confusing mixtures of conflicting linguistic data, conflicting conceptual intuitions, and conflicting physical analyses of the stuffs. For example, we can find question-begging definitions in chemistry texts such as “A solution of x in y has x uniformly distributed in a continuous medium of y”, we find Quine and H. Cartwright have different intuitions on whether ‘furniture’ and ‘luggage’ are mass terms, and we find that people divide on whether the one cc. of water we add to a cup of coffee becomes coffee, or is coffee, or is a part of a quantity of coffee, etc. Sharvy also has no qualms about holding that two empirically distinct predicates can pick out the same region of space-time.
The present paper revises my comments made on Richard Sharvy’s ‘Mixtures’, which were read to the Pacific APA in 1976. My thanks go to Richard Grandy both for his help in formulating the comments and for reading the paper at the meeting.1 This example is for those of us who think that Mexico, Central America, Hawaii, Greenland, and the Carribean are not North American. Those who think otherwise can construct their own examples.
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Notes
This example is for those of us who think that Mexico, Central America, Hawaii, Greenland, and the Carribean are not North American. Those who think otherwise can construct their own examples.
I add the “suitably vague” qualification, because I do not want “is F or not F” and “is G or not G” to be dependent even though if the one is true of something then so is the other. I have in mind something like “essentially entails”.
In introducing this problem, Sharvy claims that the linguist could rule out “C-succotash” and “B-succotash” as translations of the native’s `succotash’ by “carefully pointing to [the relevant part of the stuff] and noting the native’s affirmation of `succotash’.” He claims that this procedure cannot decide among “ACB-succotash”, “KCB-succotash”, and “SCB-succotash”. This claim depends for its truth upon our not being able to find the native’s term for `mereological sum’ (and upon our not being able to teach it to him). For, if we have the term (say that it is `sulp’), then we can “carefully point to” the corn on Lucy’s plate and “carefully point to” the beans on Benjamin’s plate and ask whether the one suip the other is succotash. If he denies it, we can rule out both “ACB-succotash” and “SCB-succotash” as translations of the native’s `succotash’, and hence `succotash’ is to be translated by “KCB-succotash”. If he affirms it, then we can rule out “KCB-succotash” as translation of the native’s `succotash’. We are then left with “ACB-succotash” and “SCB-succotash” as possible translations. We can do no better; since, under the assumption that `succotash’ does not translate as either “B-succotash” or “C-succotash”, it follows that “ACB-succotash” and “SCB-succotash” have identical extensions. (I.e., the first two disjuncts in the definition of “ACB-succotash” are otiose — it isn’t because the stuff is B-succotash or C-succotash that it is ACB-succotash). So, if we can be careful enough in our pointing to rule out B-succotash and C-succotash, and if the concept of mereological sum is a legitimate enough concept for the native to have or be taught, then we can also be careful enough in our pointing to rule out all Sharvy’s predicates (except the ones which are logically equivalent).
Julius Moravcsik, `Mass Terms in English’ in Hintikka, Moravcsik, and Suppes (eds.), Approaches to Natural Language (Reidel, 1973). For criticism, see Richard Grandy `Response to Moravcsik’ in the same volume and F. J. Pelletier `On Some Proposals for the Semantics of Mass Terms’, Journ. Phil. Logic, 1973.
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Pelletier, F.J. (1979). Sharvy on Mass Predication. In: Pelletier, F.J. (eds) Mass Terms: Some Philosophical Problems. Synthese Language Library, vol 6. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-4110-5_5
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