Aristotle and the Woodpecker

Aristotle cited the laws of contradiction and of excluded middle as examples of axioms. He partly exempted future contingents, or statements about unsure future events, from the law of excluded middle, holding that it is not (now) either true or false that there will be a naval battle tomorrow but that the complex proposition that either there will be a naval battle tomorrow or that there will not is (now) true. Aristotle cited the laws of contradiction and of excluded middle as examples of axioms. He partly exempted future contingents, or statements about unsure future events, from the law of excluded middle, holding that it is not (now) either true or false that there will be a naval battle tomorrow but that the complex proposition that either there will be a naval battle tomorrow or that there will not is (now) true. [Verse] Logicians have long distinguished the existential statement “x is” from the predicational statement “x is Y.” Franz Brentano, a precursor of Phenomenology prior to World War I, argued that they are both existential, that “x is Y ” means “xY is”; e.g., “Some fish have four eyes” means “Four-eyed fish exist.” An exactly opposite approach was taken by Alexander Bain, a Scottish philosopher and psychologist, who held that all existential statements have complex subjects from which a predicate can be extracted. [Bridge] So there’s this woodpecker He pecks all day Peck Peck Peck Peck Peck Peck Pecks his life away Ever seen him stop and wonder? At the glories of the world and beyond? He Pecks, Pecks, Pecks his life away (Pecks, Pecks, Pecks his life away) [guitar solo] [Outro]