more on this theme | more from this text
Full Idea
Sommers's 'tree theory' of predication assumes that propositions can be analysed as pairs of terms joined by some kind of predicational glue.
Gist of Idea
Propositions can be analysed as pairs of terms glued together by predication
Source
George Engelbretsen (Trees, Terms and Truth [2005], 2)
Book Ref
'The Old New Logic', ed/tr. Oderberg,David S. [MIT 2005], p.32
A Reaction
This is the basis of Sommers's upgraded Aristotelian logic, known as Term Logic. The idea of reasoning with 'terms', rather than with objects, predicates and quantifiers, seems to me very appealing. I think I reason more about facts than about objects.
Related Idea
Idea 18909 Aristotelian sentences are made up by one of four 'formative' connectors [Aristotle, by Engelbretsen]
| 18913 | Traditional term logic struggled to express relations [Engelbretsen] |
| 18907 | Term logic rests on negated terms or denial, and that propositions are tied pairs [Engelbretsen] |
| 18905 | Propositions can be analysed as pairs of terms glued together by predication [Engelbretsen] |
| 18906 | Negating a predicate term and denying its unnegated version are quite different [Engelbretsen] |
| 18908 | Standard logic only negates sentences, even via negated general terms or predicates [Engelbretsen] |
| 18912 | Was logic a branch of mathematics, or mathematics a branch of logic? [Engelbretsen] |
| 18917 | Existence and nonexistence are characteristics of the world, not of objects [Engelbretsen] |
| 18916 | Facts are not in the world - they are properties of the world [Engelbretsen] |
| 18915 | If facts are the truthmakers, they are not in the world [Engelbretsen] |
| 18919 | There are no 'falsifying' facts, only an absence of truthmakers [Engelbretsen] |
| 18918 | Terms denote objects with properties, and statements denote the world with that property [Engelbretsen] |
| 18920 | 'Socrates is wise' denotes a sentence; 'that Socrates is wise' denotes a proposition [Engelbretsen] |
| 18921 | Individuals are arranged in inclusion categories that match our semantics [Engelbretsen] |
| 18922 | Logical syntax is actually close to surface linguistic form [Engelbretsen] |