Re: [lojban] Re: [jboske] Quantifiers, Existential Import, and all that stuff

[Edward Cherlin <edward.cherlin.sy.67@aya.yale.edu>]

On Wednesday 06 March 2002 10:06, Jorge Llambias wrote:
> la pycyn cusku di'e
>
> >Read the whole exchange.  The initiator was holding that universal
> >affirmatives do not have existential import in logic but their
> > negations do.
> >But, he noted, ordinary language is different: the negations of a
> > universal need not have existential import -- in the real world.
>
> I don't think he noted that at all. What I understood was that
> the fact that "not all Klingons are bad" is true in fiction
> should not be confused with a claim that Klingons exist in the
> real world. The existential import applies in the fictional
> world only, where the sentence is true. No conflict between
> logic and ordinary language.

go'i .i ki'e doi xorxes

> >I merely noted that,
> >if you hold that, then the universal being negated does have
> > existential import (which the initiator had denied).  He gets
> > into a contradiction, from
> >which there are several escapes.  To be sure, I prefer the one
> > that allows importing universals.
>
> Let's see. In the fictional world:
>
> "All Klingons are bad" is false.
> "Not all Klingons are bad" is true.
>
> Presumably we all agree about that, since in fiction the set
> of Klingons is not empty, and we take it that Worf is not bad.
>
> In non-fiction, since there are no Klingons:
>
> "All Klingons are bad" is true or false according to your
> predilection. "Not all Klingons are bad" is false or true
> respectively.
>
> Now, which contradiction did he get into, and how does
> importing universals get you out of it?
li'o

li'a .ie .i'e. ui

-- 
Edward Cherlin
edward@webforhumans.com
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