From arosta@uclan.ac.uk Wed Feb 07 11:15:53 2001 Return-Path: X-Sender: arosta@uclan.ac.uk X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-7_0_3); 7 Feb 2001 19:15:43 -0000 Received: (qmail 73757 invoked from network); 7 Feb 2001 19:14:51 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.26) by l7.egroups.com with QMQP; 7 Feb 2001 19:14:51 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO com1.uclan.ac.uk) (193.61.255.3) by mta1 with SMTP; 7 Feb 2001 19:14:50 -0000 Received: from gwise-gw1.uclan.ac.uk by com1.uclan.ac.uk with SMTP (Mailer); Wed, 7 Feb 2001 18:58:31 +0000 Received: from DI1-Message_Server by gwise-gw1.uclan.ac.uk with Novell_GroupWise; Wed, 07 Feb 2001 19:14:22 +0000 Message-Id: X-Mailer: Novell GroupWise 5.5.2 Date: Wed, 07 Feb 2001 19:13:39 +0000 To: pycyn , lojban Subject: [lojban] RE:su'u Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Disposition: inline From: And Rosta pc: > This is the Humpty-Dumpty problem about names: HD insists his name=20 > has a meaning (sense), whereas Alice thinks it only has a referent. Put= =20 > another way, does the vishesha of an individual pick out that individual = in=20 > each world it is in as a fundamental fact or because the individual has i= n=20 > that world some other property which is common to that individual in all= =20 > worlds (are names arbitrary or desguised descriptions is another related = way=20 > of putting this all). Vaisheshika is clearly for the first view: the=20 > identification of the individual is primary and sui generis, not dependen= t=20 > upon some other property that that individual has in all words (not,=20 > strictly, upon a property at all, since vishesha is a separate category f= rom=20 > properties in V.) However, since both views make sense and, indeed, are= =20 > regularly used in the easiest ways of understanding contrary-to-fact=20 > hypotheticals, we should have distinctive ways of dealing with them in a= =20 > logical language. I take Cowan (as I neglected to say just now) as readi= ng=20 > judith-shakespeare-ness in the second way, which is still not anything ea= sily=20 > reducible to a recognized structure with {la djudit ceikspir} in it and a= n=20 > abstractor leading in. Could you give some examples where the First View but not the Second View makes sense? > I used to try to align haeceity with vishesha and they are related, but=20 > haeceity never got as well sharpened as vishesha, so it might be either o= f=20 > the interps above or something else again -- a peculiar intersection of=20 > classes or properties (IF God has a haeceity then if follows from that th= at=20 > He is ..., but it does not obviously follow from the haeceity of at least= =20 > some other things that they are ---, even in Scotus).=20=20 My only acquaintance with I. philosophy is these postings of yours. Is there a good textbook that deals with what you've been talking about (esp. the Indian stuff), so that l may read it so that less of what you say goes over my head? > &: > indentified only through their vishesha, and that cross-world identificat= ion of=20 > individuals can be done only by them having the same vishesha or by their= having > visheshas that are similar to each other to some relevantly criterial deg= ree.> > > The first version is pure Vaisheshika, the second is chicken V (David Lew= is?)=20 > which quickly reduces either to Bauddha (an ancient charge) or the second= =20 > sense of "essence" above What are "chicken Vaisheshika" (okay, I guess it's the next item on the menu after chickens korma and vindaloo, but I still don't understand you) and Bauddha? I thought that both versions of what I said are compatible wit= h the second sense of "essence", though clearly only the first version is compatible with the first sense of essence. > much you think about it" (or "makes less sense the more you think about i= t", > maybe)..> > Oh, you mean Reality! Note that all of the critters so far work find whe= n=20 > you think about them and, like all concepts, don't work at all when you t= hink=20 > about them too long (Madhyamika).=20=20 Does the first sense of essence (list of individual--world pairs) work in intensional contexts? > <[The metaphysical fault is in "la xod" referring to a particular human-s= ized > chunk of spacetime: I don't believe in reference.]> > > Not believe in reference? Why you might as well not believe in Santa Clau= s!=20=20 > How are you ever going to start language without reference, without deixi= s,=20 > the pointing finger, followed more remotely by the pointing tongue? But,= of=20 > course, even a languageless world is not metaphysically invalid, just rea= lity=20 > again and thus hard to talk about. I don't think deixis is reference; i.e. I think deictic expressions are non= referential. But anyway, my views are neither here nor there, since our current goal is to wonder how to say in Lojban things that involve essences. (I suggested a clunky formulation using x2 of ckaji, which I hope is the gismu meaning 'property of'). --And.