An Integrated Account of Theistic Predication

Abstract

Simple predications consist of three elements: a singular term, a predicate term, and a copula (characteristically but not necessarily a form of the verb be). According to an intensional interpretation, the meaning of a singular term, be it a proper name or a definite description, is identifiable with the concept it conveys. The meaning of a predicate term is associated with the property it expresses. When a predicate term is conjoined with a singular term, perhaps by some variety of the verb be, a sentence is formed that can assert a proposition capable of truth or falsity. Aristotle presented the first systematic account of simple predications in his De Interpretatione (16a-18a). He analyzed examples such as is and Man is just. The former exemplifies simple predication: the property of being white is affirmed to inhere in the individual human being Socrates. The latter does not strictly count as a simple predication because it is analyzable as Every man is just--a sentence whose subject term is modified by a plural quantifier. Aristotle interpreted terms in the fashion defined above, but almost interchangeably gave extensional readings to the effect that singular terms designate individual objects and predicate terms denote classes of objects. A simple predication interpreted in this way says that the individual designated by the subject term is a member of the class denoted by the predicate term: Socrates is a member of the class of white things. Stoic logicians clarified the distinction between intensional and extensional interpretations in their celebrated trichotomy of sign, sense, and thing signified (Sextus Empiricus, Adversus Mathematicos 8.11-12). Formal logic in the West has proceeded primarily with the use of the latter, more materialist point of view. Here intensional meanings will provide the logical starting point for reflection, appropriately so since the language of special concern deals with the purportedly immaterial being of God. Thus far discussion has featured standard elements of logical theory. I introduce some novel terminology by saying that simple predications may be either mediated or unmediated. When they are unmediated, the meanings of constituent terms are unambiguous, the truth conditions of propositions are determinate, and the distinction between signs and things signified is consistently maintained. Unmediated predications belong to the domain of logical semantics and satisfy a computational requirement of being reduced to a formal symbolism that can be manipulated by a machine as well as by a human mind. In a strict sense, the criteria for unmediated predications are met only in a restricted set of languages extensionally interpreted, yet they remain a regulatory ideal for logicians working with richer formal languages.' They do not serve similarly for dialectical logicians like Hegel (soon to be discussed), nor are they the primary desiderata for people speaking about God. Key examples will clarify the distinction. Mediated predications traverse at least one criterion of unmediated predications and really belong to the domain of phenomenological semantics. Mediation in this context connotes a mental process that reflectively relates logical matters (e.g., terms, truth conditions, and so forth) to intuitions about priority, temporality, and intentionality. Mediated predications are mediated by human reflection in a way that renders them no longer appropriate for purely mechanical computation. By intentionality, I mean the directedness of consciousness toward some mental object which may or may not actually exist. Language is a major means for directing human consciousness toward mental objects and the intentionality of linguistic meaning is relevant to the main thesis of this essay for two reasons. First, as Edmund Husserl showed in his example of the God Jupiter in the Logical Investigations (5.2.11), it provides a way of ascribing meaning to talk about things that do not materially exist. …