Too many deadlines for a serious post, but I couldn't pass this up.
Ed Wierenga and I were talking today about a certain Plantinga quote (see Ed's review of the book _Alvin Platinga_ on NDPR today by the way) and his frequent mention of the Taj Mahal came up.
A bit of unjustified time-wasting got me at least the following:
In God and Other Minds he uses "The Taj Mahal is greater than God" in an arg concerning the relative values of existent and non-existent beings.
Ol' Taj shows up in NN at various points of course, now being pink, now being non-green, now merely existing.
It's an actual being in God, Freedom, and Evil. It's distinct from some proposition r in WCB. In WPF it's the object of a false belief that it's in Australia.
And, just about everywhere, it's distinct from some proposition or other.
Other's join the fun as well. In PvI's "Theory of Properties" Taj is red or not round.
So if someone really didn't know what the Taj Mahal was (and, like you, as a kid I thought it was "The Tajma Hall"), but they read a lot of great analytic philosophy, they could piece together this description of the famous object:
It is an existent non-pink, non-round or non-red, concrete object distinct from at least one proposition, and it is somewhere outside of Australia. That doesn't narrow it down too much, but it does at least potentially rule out the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore.
PS - 10^13 points for the best Photoshopped pic of Al at the Taj Mahal. Top entries will be posted on Prosblogion.
One I have a picture, what sould I do with it? E-mail it to a certain address?
Yeah, email it to me at Trent_Dougherty@Baylor.edu.
Can't wait!
The Taj Mahal as an example comes in earlier ... from Quine.
See Methods of Logic (1950), page 1:
"To deny 'The Taj Mahal is white' is to affirm 'The Taj Mahal is not white'."
I'd not be surprised if A.P. picked it up from this source.
I've had some pretty good entries, but I'd like to see some more!
Nice catch David! I did find some potential pre-cursors but couldn't prove it.
I wonder if it was "in the air" in those days. I'd LOVE IT if someone could find an even earlier reference and/or an explanation of why it was picked.
One thing in need of explanation is Al's obsession with it! :-)