X-Digest-Num: 309
Message-ID: <44114.309.1701.959273825@eGroups.com>
Date: Sun, 12 Dec 1999 20:40:11 EST
From: Pycyn@aol.com
Subject: Re: More about questions and the like (was:What I have for dinner...")
X-Yahoo-Message-Num: 1701
Content-Length: 2021
Lines: 41

<< I think at one point that we decided that intentional descriptions and 
 names are from the point of view of the speaker (bearing in mind the 
 listener), so that if I use "la djan" in a sentence, the only thing that 
 matters is whether I and the listener know who John is, not whether le 
 djuno uses that name (or description) as part of lenu le djuno cu djuno.>>

I wonder if we could have decided that and then could make it stick for lo se 
djuno.  In a lot of cases, it is clearly important what concept/name is 
involved in the clause: John knows that the number of planets is larger than 
seven  has to be about the number of planets, not some other name of nine 
(especially since John may not know it is nine) .  If John thinks that the 
number of planets is eleven and knows that the number of players on a 
football team (which he has right) is larger than seven, that will not count 
as his knowing that the number of planets is larger than seven.  Similarly, 
if John knows Paul under some wrongheaded description but knows that the 
person he knows under that description went to the party, that may well count 
for knowing that Paul went to the party.  My and your concepts don't seem to 
count in any consistent way.
 
 
 <<This sounds like our ancient overly-discussed veridical unicorn 
 problem.  You know - whether "lo iunikorn" is equivalent to "da poi 
 iunikorn" thereby claiming that at least one unicorn exists.  Are you now 
 suggesting xu'a as a resolution to this issue, or are you suggesting xu'a 
 to kick us into some imaginary world when no otherwise stated.>>

Yes, that is, both: solving the probolem by kicking it into an imaginary 
world not otherwise stated.

<< I'm not sure how any of this ties into performatives, or whether we need 
to 
 start seeking boxes again zo'o.>>
 Performatives are just a way of getting in the intensional contexts that 
"seek" already provides for the boxes, but that are not apparent for loose 
talk about Pegasus and unicorns.
pc