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Re: [lojban] Re: brivla for 'intend'



And Rosta wrote:
Jordan:

On Tue, Oct 15, 2002 at 08:35:16PM +0000, Jorge Llambias wrote:

la and cusku di'e

What is the best brivla for "x intends that p, x intends to p", given that
intention does not entail action (or deliberate inaction) and that, ba'e
ti'e,
intention is a psychological primitive (i.e. doesn't reduce to a complex of
other notions)?
I tend to use {zukte fi} for lack of a better option, but it is certainly a
gap
in the vocabulary.
I've been using djica for this.  I think english stuff like "I
intended/meant to do that, but ...", is just mi pu djica ...

{djica} is pretty good, but I think it makes sense to say "I wanted
to go to Paris but I didn't intend to go", and "We intended to
execute the prisoners because we had to execute them, even though
we didn't want to execute the prisoners".

So there is still the gap in the vocab, even if zukte and djica can
fill much of it.
I would view intention as a species of desire, but then I tend to view a lot of things like that (need, will, obligation etc.). As Harry Frnakurt (I think) pointed out, intention adds a level of commitment to a desire, so "I wanted to go to Paris but I didn't intend to go" menas something like "I had a desire to go to Paris, but other factors (e.g. the price of the plane tickets) meant that I had no plans to act on that desire."

The prisoners example is trickier. I would argue that with the possible exception of unconscious reflexes, it is impossible to do something without wanting to do it, but that's a controversial position. I would argue that the people in question have a desire to shoot the prisoners AND a desire not to shoot the prisoners. It's tricky because the second desire is the one which would take precedence under normal circumstances, while the first is the consequentce of another desire (e.g. to avoid getting shot by your commanding officer).

robin.tr


--
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Robin Turner
IDMYO
Bilkent Üniversitesi
Ankara
Turkey

http://www.bilkent.edu.tr/~robin