In a message dated 9/11/2009 12:28:43 Eastern Daylight Time, mikael.hall@gmail.com writes:
The "A"-type statements (Standard English) all implicitly or explicitly assume the medieval view called "Aristotelian essentialism" or "naive realism." The very next statement is more telling. The "B"-type statements (E-Prime) recast these sentences into a form isomorphic to modern science by first abolishing the "is" of Aristotelian essence and then reformulating each observation in terms of signals received and interpreted by a body (or instrument) moving in space-time. This states that there are two parts to this form of E-Prime: 1) recasting the sentences into a form isomorphic to modern science by first abolishing the "is" of Aristotelian essence and then 2) reformulating each observation in terms of signals received and interpreted by a body (or instrument) moving in space-time. I was aware only of the first part, and even then, only as simple replacement of "be" with more appropriate words, rephrasing as necessary. The rest of 1 and all of 2 may be more truthful and contain more information based on the senses, but they are also more cumbersome. I suppose with practice one might become adept at not thinking and expressing oneself in such cumbersome ways, but for the time being (!) I'll just leave out "be" when I want to practice E-Prime. Thanks for the link. stevo |