Received: from mail-ww0-f61.google.com ([74.125.82.61]:49042)
	by stodi.digitalkingdom.org with esmtps (TLSv1:RC4-SHA:128)
	(Exim 4.76)
	(envelope-from <lojban+bncCNuStaWoDxD8gvb1BBoEzhCVKw@googlegroups.com>)
	id 1ROxS1-00080w-KA; Fri, 11 Nov 2011 12:11:56 -0800
Received: by wwf27 with SMTP id 27sf2293583wwf.16
        for <multiple recipients>; Fri, 11 Nov 2011 12:11:41 -0800 (PST)
DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed;
        d=googlegroups.com; s=beta;
        h=x-beenthere:received-spf:message-id:date:from:user-agent
         :mime-version:to:subject:references:in-reply-to:x-original-sender
         :x-original-authentication-results:reply-to:precedence:mailing-list
         :list-id:x-google-group-id:list-post:list-help:list-archive:sender
         :list-subscribe:list-unsubscribe:content-type
         :content-transfer-encoding;
        bh=G9jD7PMozntFyp8d3s3/KOK4gHCIV7CB0n1t2a0970o=;
        b=ftJOFqdlxDZxiuFr3C1yhymMdSa/OXc1iP/vJfAyAr63FrWd36dcn84yBGLRUoLWbt
         BOrwut339A0s3R13g718s6hn0lgn92Q5XwRcxv+VzTi01K++3FEZwtll5xFc6+I37PNw
         ocryZbZ8D+afqabZRkUQlk0LYT1ibAMQeQhpw=
Received: by 10.216.136.160 with SMTP id w32mr566814wei.6.1321042300333;
        Fri, 11 Nov 2011 12:11:40 -0800 (PST)
X-BeenThere: lojban@googlegroups.com
Received: by 10.227.200.140 with SMTP id ew12ls6942985wbb.3.gmail; Fri, 11 Nov
 2011 12:11:39 -0800 (PST)
Received: by 10.227.57.199 with SMTP id d7mr579403wbh.4.1321042299464;
        Fri, 11 Nov 2011 12:11:39 -0800 (PST)
Received: by 10.227.57.199 with SMTP id d7mr579402wbh.4.1321042299446;
        Fri, 11 Nov 2011 12:11:39 -0800 (PST)
Received: from mail-ww0-f43.google.com (mail-ww0-f43.google.com [74.125.82.43])
        by gmr-mx.google.com with ESMTPS id k17si6680023wbo.1.2011.11.11.12.11.39
        (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=OTHER);
        Fri, 11 Nov 2011 12:11:39 -0800 (PST)
Received-SPF: pass (google.com: domain of and.rosta@gmail.com designates 74.125.82.43 as permitted sender) client-ip=74.125.82.43;
Received: by wwp14 with SMTP id 14so2137788wwp.12
        for <lojban@googlegroups.com>; Fri, 11 Nov 2011 12:11:39 -0800 (PST)
Received: by 10.227.208.71 with SMTP id gb7mr8734578wbb.7.1321042299296;
        Fri, 11 Nov 2011 12:11:39 -0800 (PST)
Received: from [192.168.1.89] (87-194-76-177.bethere.co.uk. [87.194.76.177])
        by mx.google.com with ESMTPS id em4sm14705966wbb.20.2011.11.11.12.11.37
        (version=SSLv3 cipher=OTHER);
        Fri, 11 Nov 2011 12:11:38 -0800 (PST)
Message-ID: <4EBD8178.8080202@gmail.com>
Date: Fri, 11 Nov 2011 20:11:36 +0000
From: And Rosta <and.rosta@gmail.com>
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-US; rv:1.9.2.23) Gecko/20110920 Thunderbird/3.1.15
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: lojban@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [lojban] {zo'e} as close-scope existentially quantified plural variable
References: <20111029001437.GA5535@gonzales> <4EAC2461.4040307@gmail.com> <20111029172822.GC9385@gonzales> <4EAC5B24.4000604@gmail.com> <20111103234955.GA3758@gonzales> <4EB43035.6040407@gmail.com> <20111104233756.GB24058@gonzales> <4EB4A123.7030305@gmail.com> <20111105061247.GE24058@gonzales> <4EB526B7.7070008@gmail.com> <20111105172216.GI24058@gonzales> <4EB58359.8040708@gmail.com> <1320679756.16359.YahooMailRC@web81306.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
In-Reply-To: <1320679756.16359.YahooMailRC@web81306.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
X-Original-Sender: and.rosta@gmail.com
X-Original-Authentication-Results: gmr-mx.google.com; spf=pass (google.com:
 domain of and.rosta@gmail.com designates 74.125.82.43 as permitted sender)
 smtp.mail=and.rosta@gmail.com; dkim=pass (test mode) header.i=@gmail.com
Reply-To: lojban@googlegroups.com
Precedence: list
Mailing-list: list lojban@googlegroups.com; contact lojban+owners@googlegroups.com
List-ID: <lojban.googlegroups.com>
X-Google-Group-Id: 1004133512417
List-Post: <http://groups.google.com/group/lojban/post?hl=en_US>, <mailto:lojban@googlegroups.com>
List-Help: <http://groups.google.com/support/?hl=en_US>, <mailto:lojban+help@googlegroups.com>
List-Archive: <http://groups.google.com/group/lojban?hl=en_US>
Sender: lojban@googlegroups.com
List-Subscribe: <http://groups.google.com/group/lojban/subscribe?hl=en_US>, <mailto:lojban+subscribe@googlegroups.com>
List-Unsubscribe: <http://groups.google.com/group/lojban/subscribe?hl=en_US>, <mailto:lojban+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
X-Spam-Score: -0.7 (/)
X-Spam_score: -0.7
X-Spam_score_int: -6
X-Spam_bar: /

John E Clifford, On 07/11/2011 15:29:
> I thought I sort of understood what blobularism was, but now I am conside=
rably
> less sure -- and getting more so the more I read.  A nice straightforward
> account would be useful as Hell.  What I understand seems to me to be tot=
ally
> compatible with what I take to be the Readymadeist position (or at least =
the SAE
> metaphysics) and with what I understand to be the process of language-lea=
rning
> and the nature of linguistic constructs,  So, I don't see the conflict, w=
hich,
> apparently means I am missing something crucial.  What?

Ready-Madeism says that there is just one, determinate set of all individua=
ls, where individuals are the things that predicates are predicated of. Blo=
bularism says there are infinitely many different sets of all individuals, =
each set differentiated by varying criteria for differentiating individuals=
.

I (but not necessarily xorxes or other potential Blobularists) see Blobular=
ism as consisting of a taxonomical hierarchy of types, related to one anoth=
er by the Subtype relation. Ready-Made individuals, such as Obama or a part=
icular lion, correspond to types -- the types that consist of the haecceity=
 (which is here equivalent to quiddity, I think) of Obama and the particula=
r lion. So "Obama is American" involves not predicating Americanness of the=
 individual Obama, but rather a claim that everything (or at least, somethi=
ng) that is Obama is American. Most types can have subtypes, so the taxonom=
y mostly lacks terminal leaf nodes and extends infinitely away from the roo=
t. Within the taxonomy of types there are no distinct levels.

John E. Clifford, On 09/11/2011 16:22:
> If someone asks, out of the blue, how many lions there are and I say
> "About 12,000", my answer may be wrong but it is the right sort of
> answer. If the gotcha questioner says "no, there are four" I can
> righteously respond "Hey, there are five just in our Zoo". If he goes
> on to explain "The European (now extinct), the African, the Indian,
> and the Asiatic", I might exclaim "Oh, you meant *kinds* of lions!".
> Yet, had he begun the conversation with "There are four lions: the
> European, the Asiatic, the Indian, and the African", I would have
> understood him fine and had no complaints. I would equally have no
> problems with "That lion is the same as the one we saw yesterday"
> nor, probably, with "Lion (or lions) is (are) quite tasty, when
> marinated in monkey-brain sauce and roasted over an open fire", nor
> "Lions eat gazelles" nor "A/The lion is/Lions are the second largest
> cat". And so on through countless other examples.
>
> The point is that the word "lion" (and "lions") can indicate a number
> of different ontological levels, from the narrowest to the broadest
> and most abstract. There is is, though, a default level that turns up
> in the absence of contrary contextual clues, even though it may be
> easily overridden by those clues. We have words for the various
> levels, which we can use to explicitly set the level or change in mid
> discussion ("kind", "segment", "meat", "typically" and "species"
> roughly for the examples above). Shifting without making note of the
> shift or starting off at the non-default level without a flag, is a
> Gricean misdemeanor.
>
> What the default level is for a given word varies from word to word:
> "lion" takes sort of midlevel gross physical objects, "letter" takes
> a highly abstracted level (there are twenty-six letters in the
> English alphabet). Other words probably take lower levels, Buddhist
> technical terms for components of a person probably somewhere around
> the bottom. And, as the last example indicates, each level can be
> expressed in a number of ways.
>
> As far as I can figure out, the recent discussion on the {zo'e}
> thread (or at least one or two of those discussions) hinges on
> whether we have the same fluidity of levels in Lojban and whether
> certain moves constitute misdemeanor violation level shifting.

I think I basically agree with this summary, with the proviso that Gricean =
misdemeanours are highly sensitive to the particular utterance context. I a=
lso think that levels are defined only relative to one another (by Subtype)=
 rather than intrinsically. I suppose I might also question whether it is t=
rue for all words that it has a specified default level.

--And.

--=20
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "=
lojban" group.
To post to this group, send email to lojban@googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to lojban+unsubscribe@googlegrou=
ps.com.
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/lojban=
?hl=3Den.