Subject: Re: Fwd: [lojban] Re: I like chocolate

From: "Jorge Llambias" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 10 Sep 2002 22:40:01 +0000

la pycyn cusku di'e
><<
> > From my point of view quantification is the key issue here.
> >>
>And I still don't see why: if you have a set of things of any sort, then 
>you
>can quantify over the members of that set. What does the fact that the set
>contains abstract things have to do with denying this triviality?

Nothing, but I think you're mixing levels here. Given a set
(of whatever elements: concrete, abstract, real, imaginary,
whatever you like), given that set, you can quantify over its
extension, or you can use its intension (the intension that
defines the set, not the particular intensions that might be
involved in otherwise defining any of the members). To use the
intension of that set and not its extension, I can't have a
quantifier running over that set, no matter what type of things
its elements are.

>But, why should the quantifier not be there?

Because the quantifier immediately brings forward the extension.

>Even if ythe set has only one
>member, quantification is still meaningful -- indeed, even if the set has 
>no
>members.

But the sets we're talking about have many members in general:
a set of chocolates, a set of events of eating. I don't want
to quantify over the extensions of those sets, I want to use the
intensions.

>It surely is meaningful when the set has an indefinite number of
>members.

We agree then. In those cases, I use {lo'e} when I don't want
to quantify over the extension of the set.

mu'o mi'e xorxes

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