Other formats

    Adobe Portable Document Format file (facsimile images)   TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

Salient. An Organ of Student Opinion at Victoria College, Wellington, N.Z. Vol. 13, No. 16. July 27, 1950

Unable to Answer Questions

Unable to Answer Questions

Duggan failed to understand syntactical analysis, as exhibited by his inability to answer a question set to him by Philisophy 1 student Dave Walshe as to whether "the Science of Being" is not merely bad syntax, and is not in any way a definition of syntax.

On the question of existence, he declared that Bertrand Russell said it was a meaningless word, whereas Russell really asserted that the word "exist" can be used syntactically correctly only with descriptions.

Duggan failed to appreciate the analytical method which derives from Moore of Cambridge. When asked to prove the comparative status of the phrase "infinite being," he could only reply—"Prove that it isn't!"

Again on the question of Being, he appeared to be quite non-plussed by Erie Robinson's question—"Being is a summation of qualities. If we have a horse and take away the quality of heaviness, the quality of body, and the quality of 4 legs, what have we left?" Lance Robinson—"The tail." When the roars had subsided he appeared to think that when the tail had been taken away there was left the essence of the tall.

He was quite unable to describe the concept or nature of infinity to a Catholic student for whom the question was of major importance. Asked if Infinity was some sort of abstraction, picture, or merely a verbal conception, Duggan replied that it was a concept transferred from the contemplation of the real world to the spiritual world.