RE: More about questions and the like (was:What I have for dinner...")

["And Rosta" <a.rosta@pmail.net>]

> From: reciproc@freenet.edmonton.ab.ca
> 
> On Sat, 11 Dec 1999, And Rosta wrote:
> 
> > Likewise, for the second problem, 
> > 
> >   "Pegasus was the winged horse captured by Bellerophon" 
> >   = "for every x, if x is-Pegasus then x 
> >     is-the-winged-horse-captured-by-Bellerophon"
> 
> I like it!
> 
> > -- and the universal quantification doesn't license the
> > inferences "There was a winged horse" and "Winged horses have 
> > existed."  
> 
> The problem is that we want to imply that there *are* winged horses, in a
> certain context. Using the above, "Bellerophon was the winged horse
> captured by Pegasus" would be equally true. In reality, of course, both
> sentences do have equal truth values, but we want to indicate that we're
> actually in a very particular fiction.

Taking your basic point to be the need to distinguish the need for 
different truth status for "P was the winged-horse captured by B"
and "B was the winged-horse captured by P", I'd propose:

   In all possible worlds consistent with Greek mythology,
   for every x, if x is-Pegasus then x is-the-winged-horse-captured-
   by-Bellerophon

--And.