Actually we don't. You think, "Any artifact is proposed by at least one active agent for consideration as useful, beautiful, true, or good," includes organisms other than human beings. I do not.Belinda wrote: ↑Thu Aug 13, 2020 10:56 pmI think we understand the same by 'proposition' : it's predicating something about a subject.RCSaunders wrote: ↑Thu Aug 13, 2020 4:24 pmThe word, "proposition," has several different definitions, even in philosophy. When I use the word proposition in epistemology I am referring to one explicit definition, "a verbal statement that asserts something about something else." From my article, "Epistemology, Propositions":Belinda wrote: ↑Thu Aug 13, 2020 8:39 am
I try to falsify your "Propositions cannot be formed with images, only with concepts,and all real knowledge is held in the form of propositions." and I cannot falsify your meta-proposition.
What I can do is include in your meta-proposition that maps, poems, pictures, sculptures, novels, motor cars,sparking plugs, trained dogs, wheels, dairy cows ,and vacuum cleaners are also propositions. Any artefact is proposed by at least one active agent for consideration as useful, beautiful, true, or good. I'd exclude from the category of 'propositions' wild animals,wild plants, and human beings.
Joke artefacts such as Heath Robinson machines which portray absurd propositions are funny because of the element of truth they contain.The truth they contain is that some machines are not viable propositions.
Regarding human beings as propositions, if anyone proposes human beings must be for such and such a purpose that proposition is immoral because human beings are not means to ends.For instance the Nazis in Germany proposed women were for Kinder, Kuche, Kirche and the immorality was that women were thus designated as means to ends.
You do not have to mean by, "proposition," what I mean by proposition, but if you are going to question what I say about propositions and knowledge it must be in terms of what I mean by propositions. If you want to question my view of propositions, that's fine too, so long as you understand what I am really saying.The essential form of any proposition consists of three elements, a subject (the something being asserted about), a predicate (the something being asserted) and a copula (which specifies the exact relationship between the subject and predicate). In the proposition, "coffee is a beverage," the terms are, "coffee," "is," and "a beverage." "Coffee," is the subject, "a beverage," is the predicate, and "is" is the copula.
But since you do and cannot see any fundamental difference between all other organisms and human beings (except as a matter of degree) why would you, "exclude from the category of 'propositions' wild animals, wild plants, and human beings." No other animal excludes any other animal or plant as useful to itself, for food, for example, and if human beings are just other animals, why should they?
It seems to me, if you see nothing wrong with all other animals eating each other and any plant they like, even enslaving each other the way ants enslave aphids, to exclude human beings from that privilege implies some fundamental difference between human beings and the other animals.