Friday, June 22, 2012

Getting the Londoners' goat

A post yesterday by the Maverick which is 'guaranteed to get London Ed's goat'. The argument he alludes to can be summarised as follows:

Brian Wilson's song says that there is a girl called Rhonda
The song does not say how tall she was
Therefore there is someone (Rhonda) who is indeterminate with respect to the property of being tall

He ends "The record will show that I myself eschew Meinongianism". It's a mystery to us Londoners.

1 comment:

Anthony said...

I'd go with:

1) Brian Wilson's song was about three people, one named "Rhonda".
2) We don't know Rhonda's height.
3) With respect to the property of height, Rhonda is indeterminate.
4) Therefore there is someone (Rhonda) who is indeterminate with respect to the property of height.

If there is no Rhonda, then 1 is, strictly speaking, false. We might use our imagination and pretend it's true, but it isn't actually true. In any case, the leap from 2 to 3 is invalid even if we pretend 1 is true.