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Re: [lojban] {zo'e} as close-scope existentially quantified plural variable
John E. Clifford, On 30/10/2011 18:38:
Whatever else it does ( and I confess to not following most of the
subsequent discussion), xorxes' story raises one of the great
problems for the Aristotelian wing: how do we get to generalizations
from limited instances? Children who have seen only chihuahuas,
somehow recognize terriers and spaniels as dogs, for example. Xorxes
suggests the Platonic answer: we are directly aware of the kind when
we see the instance (well, some of us, anyhow).
Is that Xorxes's answer? I'd have thought his answer is rather that people strive to form inductive generalizations, as in fact is abundantly attested by child language, e.g. the child that calls the moon 'ball', or (as my son did) an overhead lamp 'moon'.
I don't think that is a very good answer, but the attempts to find
psychological mechanism to explain how we do it so well are not much
better. But I still don't see why kinds (etc.) are needed for Lojban
semantics or just explaining what Lojban expressions do nor why, if
they are needed, maximal bunches of the appropriate sort won't do the
trick -- at a significant ontological savings.
Is anybody actually saying kinds are needed? It seems to me that Xorxes is saying we need just one sort of thing, call them Foobles, and Martin is saying that Foobles should be subdivided into Snargles and Kinds, and that Kinds are unnecessary. Thus Xorxes is not so much advocating Kinds as not accepting Martin's Snargle--Kind distinction.
--And.
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