Re: [lojban] Re: A (rather long) discussion of {all}

[John E Clifford <clifford-j@sbcglobal.net>]

Actually, a singularist point of view does not
prevent referring to the object (a mass in this
case) with the same term for both distributive
and  collective predication.  Remember the two
systems make no difference at all in what you
say, only in how you picture what you say.  I
suspect the problem here is thinking that masses
or whatever only have collective / individual
predication.  That's true in standard set theory
but bno law forces us to use that set theory; we
can use L-sets, say.

--- Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com> wrote:

> On 5/29/06, Maxim Katcharov
> <maxim.katcharov@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Avoiding the word "mass"/"crowd" when you say
> "the students" does not
> > mean that "the students" does not refer to a
> group of students. It
> > does.
> 
> That's the singularist view, yes. But it is not
> the only possible view.
> 
> > Show me how and what "the students" refers
> to.
> 
> In the pluralist view, it does not refer to one
> thing. It refers to
> many things,
> i.e. the many students.
> 
> > Additionally, I don't think that Lojban uses
> this mistaken concept of
> > "plural predication": it seems that the book
> that describes it has not
> > been published yet, and so Lojban predates it
> by about 20 years.
> 
> That may be true. Is your argument then that
> conservatism requires
> that we stick with the singularist view? (CLL
> does concede that pronouns
> at least can refer to "individuals" or "masses"
> depending on context,
> so even there one can find, at least in
> embryonic form, the pluralist view.)
> 
> > Then what surrounds the building? Please give
> an explanation,
> > hopefully a detailed one, as opposed to a
> vague 2-word answer.
> 
> I'm afraid nothing further I might add will
> change your mind. Luckily
> for you, and for anyone else who prefers the
> singularist view, nothing
> in Lojban prevents you from putting that view
> into practice. If you are
> consistent with your view you simply won't
> apply a distributive and a
> non-distributive predicate to the same sumti,
> you will always have
> to split your bridis in two in such cases. This
> may make some things
> more cumbersome to express, and I see nothing
> gained by it, but it's
> always doable.
> 
> > This brings us right back to:
> >
> > 2) You can't use {lo danlu cu bajra gi'e
> blabi} to refer to a white
> > dog and running cats,
> 
> Right, because the animals that are running are
> not the same animals
> that are white. In the case of the students,
> the people that are wearing the
> hats are the same people that are surrounding
> the building. If they were
> not the same people you could not use one sumti
> for both predications.
> 
> > and so you can't use {[L_ muno tadni] cu
> [dasni
> > lo mapku] gi'e [sruri le dinju]} to refer to
> a number of students and
> > to a mass composed of students.
> 
> Right, because the mass is not the students, so
> if you only allow singular
> reference, you can refer either to the one mass
> of students or to each
> one student individually.
> 
> But if you allow plural reference, then it is
> the very same students who
> wear the hats and surround the building. In
> this case, the two predicates
> are predicated of the _same_ referents, and so
> you can use one sumti to
> refer to them.
> 
> > A mass of students is, whether it's
> > convenient or not, a different entity than
> what each one of the
> > students is.
> 
> Indeed.
> 
> > There is no way to refer both to "mass
> composed of X" and
> > "X" at the same time (there is no
> superclass).
> 
> I agree.
> 
> mu'o mi'e xorxes
> 
> 
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>