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--- John Cowan <cowan@hidden.email> wrote: > Jorge Llamb��)B�as scripsit: > > > Mr. Bird is indeed sometimes a parrot, sometimes an eagle, sometimes... > > Well, it's true that if I have seen a parrot (say, Paulie), I have seen > Mr. Bird. But it does not follow that if I have seen Thorondor (and > a fortiori Mr. Bird), I have seen an entity that is sometimes a parrot. > Thorondor is always an eagle. If Mr Bird is an entity, and you have seen Mr Bird in the guise of Thorondor, then you have seen an entity that has been known sometime as Paulie (though not at the time you saw it.). > Similarly, some birds are carnivorous, including Thorondor, but Mr. Bird > is not carnivorous. Why not? If you saw Mr Bird eat meat, then at least at that point Mr Bird was being carnivorous. You can't claim that it is seen by you but it does not eat whatever it is eating. > If he were, then it would be fair to say that when > I have seen Paulie, I have seen Mr. Carnivore: but I have not. No, you have seen somthing that is sometimes carnivore but was not being carnivore at the time you saw it. (Not only it was not eating meat at the time, but it was not being carnivore in its present (=attendant) incarnation.) > > In very restricted contexts he may be Paulie. Just as John Cowan in > > some very restricted context may be "a person sitting in his chair and > > drinking a cup of tea" even though in most contexts he is not that. > > For the record, this John Cowan (but see > http://www.ccil.org/~cowan/notme.html) > doesn't drink tea, or any other similar beverage. At no point in his life? mu'o mi'e xorxes __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? The New Yahoo! Search - Faster. Easier. Bingo. http://search.yahoo.com