Semantics and Syntax (WAS Re: Semantic Conventions)
Niklas BORSON
omitted. I do not intend to make a point-by-point rebuttal. ]
Meaning and syntax are clearly not identical (no Earth-shaking
revelations here!) However, I do not agree with Mikhail Zeleney that
one can have semantics without syntax.
It is an oversimplification to say, as Zeleney does, that:
> Meaning is what a term stands for. There is no other definition.
This definition asserts a relation between a "term" and something else:
that which the term stands for. This does not tell me what meaning is.
It only leads me to rephrase the question:
Just what is it that a term stands for?
This definition requires us to make tremendous ontological commitments.
For, if we are to assume that a term acquires its meaning by reference to
some thing, then we must be prepared to assert that some thing exists for
every meaningful term.
Furthermore, how are we to account for fine shades of meaning? It is indeed
comfortable to think of our symbols as perfect, indivisible atoms which
bear a clear and absolute relation to reality. But reality does not present
itself in such convenient parcels, passively waiting to be discovered.
Anyone who makes a concerted attempt to illuminate meaning is sure to find
that it must be moulded and not merely discovered.
I do not believe that we live in a vast illusion of our own design. Meaning
is indeed the relation that we, as thinking things, bear to reality. But
it does not simply wait "out there" to be discovered. It is the means
by which we mould our disordered sensations into perception and
understanding.
Which brings me to Zeleney's recommendation that one try an elemental
course in model theory (for an explanation of the relation of syntax to
semantics). I wholeheartedly reaffirm this suggestion. Chances are, the
first thing one will learn from such a course is that facts are theory-
laden. No proposition is simply factual; all must be understood, to some
degree, in terms of a model or paradigm.
--Niklas Borson
Claus Schoenleber
Happy New Year to all,
Claus.
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"And he that breaks a thing to find out what it is
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Jeff Dalton
>Which brings me to Zeleney's recommendation that one try an elemental
>course in model theory (for an explanation of the relation of syntax to
>semantics). I wholeheartedly reaffirm this suggestion. Chances are, the
>first thing one will learn from such a course is that facts are theory-
>laden. No proposition is simply factual; all must be understood, to some
>degree, in terms of a model or paradigm.
That's philosophy of science, not model theory. Model throey is
part of methematical logic. It's where you learn about, say,
nonstandard models of arithmetic, or the upward and downward
Lowenheim(?sp)-Skolem theorems.