RE: [jboske] RE: Llamban

["And Rosta" <a.rosta@lycos.co.uk>]

John:
> pycyn@aol.com scripsit:
> 
> > One case that seems like the ones I have taken as bare conditionals 
> but that 
> > does not seem to work well, "I am a novelist" in the sense "I write 
> novels." 
> > Not writing novels does not (by itself) count against the claim, but 
> > explaining the test has so far escaped me. 
> 
> I think this is a confusion. For me, "I am a novelist who doesn't write
> novels" is a flat contradiction, right along with "I am a cook who doesn't
> prepare food", "I am a painter who's never touched a brush", "I am an
> illiterate reader", etc. etc 
> 
> Pace And, I don't know any way to become a lion-tamer without taming, or
> participating in the taming, of at least one actual lion, any more than
> one can become an automobile driver by reading a book 

It is sufficient for the purposes of discussion that at least some of
us think that lion-tamers needn't have tamed lions. I don't find it odd
to say "I'm a qualified lion-tamer" when I've never tamed a lion.
Certain I know qualified teachers who would give their profession as
'teacher', even though they've never taught.

I have a friend who says he's a novelist, even though he hasn't written
a novel, and doesn't seriously plan to. I used to claim to be a nonsmoker
who smoked, and during the period when I had quit I felt myself to be
smoker who didn't smoke. Such descriptions are not meaningless or
nonsensical or even flat-out contradictory. Rather, they need to be
enriched, in their logical form, by notions of possible worlds,
hypothetical states of affairs, etc.

--And.