From a.rosta@dtn.ntl.com Fri Feb 09 09:33:01 2001 Return-Path: X-Sender: a.rosta@dtn.ntl.com X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-7_0_3); 9 Feb 2001 17:32:52 -0000 Received: (qmail 29507 invoked from network); 9 Feb 2001 17:32:51 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.27) by l10.egroups.com with QMQP; 9 Feb 2001 17:32:51 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO mta03-svc.ntlworld.com) (62.253.162.43) by mta2 with SMTP; 9 Feb 2001 17:32:50 -0000 Received: from andrew ([62.252.13.86]) by mta03-svc.ntlworld.com (InterMail vM.4.01.02.27 201-229-119-110) with SMTP id <20010209173248.QXCO10171.mta03-svc.ntlworld.com@andrew> for ; Fri, 9 Feb 2001 17:32:48 +0000 To: "lojban" Subject: RE: [lojban] RE:su'u Date: Fri, 9 Feb 2001 17:31:54 -0000 Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook IMO, Build 9.0.2416 (9.0.2910.0) Importance: Normal In-Reply-To: <4.3.2.7.2.20010208084153.00acb990@127.0.0.1> X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2615.200 From: "And Rosta" X-Yahoo-Message-Num: 5359 Lojbab: > At 05:59 PM 02/07/2001 +0000, And Rosta wrote: [...] > >The issue is which of the following is 'right': > > > >(I) The relation between a name and its referent (e.g. between "jimc" and > >you) is a mere labelling, like the relationship between you and what > >I believe Americans call the Social Security number. (And note that > >a Social Security number needn't be arbitrary.in your sense: for example, > >you might have been born 03/04/1960 and have an IQ of 155 and have > >a Soc Sec No. 03041960155.) > > > >(II) So-called names don't actually have referents. "Jimc" does not > >refer to you. Instead it denotes 'jimcness, jimchood', a predicate > >'jimc(x)'. So when I say "jimc is at UCLA", what this means is that > >something that has jimcness/jimchood -- x such that jimc(x) -- is at > >UCLA. This, I think, is what pc meant by disguised descriptions. > >Note that if there were somebody else also called "jimc", this would > >denote a different essence from the one denoted by your name -- names > >are quite ordinarily infinitely-many ways homonymous. > > It sounds like you are making a non-veridical/veridical distinction > here. Only in the sense that this veridicality distinction applies only to descriptions ("x such that F(x)"). (I)-type naming involves no descrption, and hence is neither veridical nor nonveridical. (II)-type naming involves description ("x such that Lojbab(x)") so can be veridical ("da poi Lojbab(ke'a)") or nonveridical ("da voi Lojbab(ke'a)"). > I is a mere label assigned by the speaker, hopefully allowing > communication, like "le" descriptions. "le" descriptions aren't a mere label. They describe the referent, even though the description is not claimed to be true. > II refers to something that > actually has a property associated inalienably with the name (which makes > me think we are talking about the ineffable name of God, or something, > because I cannot think of any property of a thing which is inalienably > associated with a name). The property is associated with the name by the normal relationship "is the sense of". So just as 'cat' (the animal) is the sense of CAT (the lexical item), so 'Lojbabhood' would be the sense of LOJBAB (the lexical item). Each sense has a definition -- "goes miaow" is part of the definition of 'cat'; "is married to Nora" is part of the definition of 'Lojbabhood'. --And.