From edward.cherlin.sy.67@aya.yale.edu Fri Mar 08 23:56:11 2002 Return-Path: X-Sender: cherlin@pacbell.net X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: unknown); 9 Mar 2002 07:56:10 -0000 Received: (qmail 39723 invoked from network); 9 Mar 2002 07:56:10 -0000 Received: from unknown (216.115.97.172) by m3.grp.snv.yahoo.com with QMQP; 9 Mar 2002 07:56:10 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO mta7.pltn13.pbi.net) (64.164.98.8) by mta2.grp.snv.yahoo.com with SMTP; 9 Mar 2002 07:56:10 -0000 Received: from there ([216.102.199.245]) by mta7.pltn13.pbi.net (iPlanet Messaging Server 5.1 (built May 7 2001)) with SMTP id <0GSP00KEH4PLG2@mta7.pltn13.pbi.net> for lojban@yahoogroups.com; Fri, 08 Mar 2002 23:56:10 -0800 (PST) Date: Fri, 08 Mar 2002 23:56:09 -0800 Subject: Re: [lojban] Re: [jboske] Quantifiers, Existential Import, and all that stuff In-reply-to: To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Message-id: <0GSP00KEI4PMG2@mta7.pltn13.pbi.net> Organization: Web for Humans MIME-version: 1.0 X-Mailer: KMail [version 1.3.1] Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-transfer-encoding: quoted-printable References: X-eGroups-From: Edward Cherlin From: Edward Cherlin Reply-To: edward@webforhumans.com X-Yahoo-Group-Post: member; u=31895329 X-Yahoo-Profile: echerlin 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 --=20 Edward Cherlin edward@webforhumans.com Does your Web site work?