* Monday, 2011-09-26 at 19:33 -0700 - John E Clifford <kali9putra@yahoo.com>: > While I think that it is possible to make both the Platonic (all types, no > individuals) and Buddhist (all segments, no perduring individuals) models work, > they both seem to me needlessly complex as models for Lojban (or English) > semantics. Both languages assume perduring individuals and admit (if at all) > types as syntheses of individuals and and segments as analyses. > > [(where segments are those] > little (temporal)chunks of individuals that xorxes seems to think > are needed somehow or that he thinks are analogous to manifestation in > the Platonic model. And he is right, of course, in that both of them > are abstractions from individuals, which, so far, are all that have > been shown to be needed. > [)] > > Talk about these odd entities can be translated into talk about > individuals without loss and apparently in several different ways. So > why muck up the ontology? Now, of course, these remaoks assume that > either one of you is actually proposing one of these odd, which I am > not sure you are. If you are, lay it out boldly and give some > arguments for it. So far, the most that I can for the Platonic is > that Carlson uses types for some plurals -- but those types are just > maximal bunches, as even he occasionally admits. I haven't seen any > uses for the Buddhist line. I propose no kinds/types nor stages/segments, and would indeed prefer to analyse kinds away. Currently I see no reason this can't be done - kinds resolving to one of existential quantification, generic quantification, or property abstraction. But I'm hazy on how the generic horn of that trichotomy works, so I wouldn't go so far as to say I'm 'proposing' anything.
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