RE: [jboske] Opacity and belief

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

forwarded from John:

> The Yahoos are giving me a hard time, 

[me too; I've just spent 20 mins trying to get to the bottom of my
problem.]

> so please forward this to jboske 
> Thanks 
> 
> 
> And Rosta scripsit:
> 
> > I believe there is a distinction between
> > 
> > John said furze is not gorse 
> > John said "Furze is not gorse" 
> > 
> > in the former, I describe John's dicta/beliefs using my words. In the
> > latter, I report his words/beliefs using his words. I take de dicto
> > to be the former 
> 
> I think this particular distinction is blurred in these belief-discussions,
> perhaps because we have no belief-verb in English that accepts a quotation 
> 
> > > > There is no problem with reporting this in Lojban. We just need one
> > > > predicate that denotes what Pierre's 'Londres' denotes and another
> > > > predicate that denotes what his 'London' denotes
> > >
> > > I don't think that such predicates can exist. Pierre's London is a real
> > > place, but his Londres is a projection of a concept that doesn't refer
> > 
> > How come? I don't see them as having a different status. Both Pierrean
> > London and Pierrean Londres are concepts/categories/kinds. Whether
> > things in the real world actually instantiate them is neither here nor
> > there 
> 
> As I said before, this leeds to a sort of dualism, in which there are
> plain objects and kinds, and there is one or more kinds for every plain
> object. Indeed, it is difficult to see why one should have plain objects
> at all, since kinds more than cover them 
> 
> But I cannot swallow this for Lojban 
> 
> -- 
> De plichten van een docent zijn divers, John Cowan
> die van het gehoor ook. jcowan@reutershealth.com
> --Edsger Dijkstra http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
> 
> 
> 
>