Subject: Re: [lojban] RE:su'u

From: "Jorge Llambias" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 09 Feb 2001 22:39:08

la djan cusku di'e

>We can if you
>like replace all talk of Socrates with talk of the Socratizer, where
>"x1 is a Socratizer" is a predicate that is (intensionally) true of
>Socrates and nobody else. But does this really change anything?

If both views are equivalent it would have been much better
to have selmaho CMENE behave just like any BRIVLA. The language
would be much more parsimonious. It has always bothered me
that I can't just say {*mi xorxes} or {*mi tcidu le djan cukta}.

>OTOH, if we use a predicate that is merely contingently true of Socrates,
>such as "husband of Xanthippe" (ignoring the recursion), then we
>get into trouble.

I never trusted much the contingent/essential distinction.
It seems to me that there is a continuum going from the most
essential type of properties to the more contingent, but no
property can be said to be strictly one or the other.

>Supposing that Xanthippe could have been married to
>Xenophon instead of Socrates, then we would be compelled to
>affirm sentences like "If Socrates had not married Xanthippe, he
>would not have been Socrates", which seems absurd.
>Or still worse: "If Xenophon had married Xanthippe, he would have
>been Socrates"!

Right, so "is Socrates" is not equivalent to "is the husband of
Xanthippe", but that does not make "is Socrates" totally
non-contingent. Otherwise, something like "if you were Socrates
and Socrates was your student" would be meaningless, but it isn't,
we do get a meaning out of it.

>IOW "Socratizer" is a useful predicate provided it rigidly designates
>Socrates over all possible worlds (or at least those where he exists).

Fairly rigidly, yes, but I see no need to go to the absolute.

co'o mi'e xorxes

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