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xod:
> While Mr. Bird may be considered an extension, it seems that his name can
> be used as an intensional reference. "I'm looking for a bird -- any
> bird.", "I am looking for Mr. Bird".
Mr Bird is intensional through and through. Kinds exist in an ontology
in which everything is intensional. In an extensional ontology, you take
a chunk of spacetime (energy-matter) and classify it as belonging to
some intensional category. In an intensional ontology, all Kinds exist:
you don't have to go out and examine spacetime in order to determine
whether they exist.
I wonder whether by "intension" you have in mind something like
"definition",
a body of propositions that define a given category? If so, then we may
be in for some terminological confusion. At any rate, when you are looking
for a bird, you are not looking for the definition of bird. Rather, you
are endeavouring to bring it about that there is a bird that you encounter.
Alternatively, you can switch to a worldview in which all birds are one,
and say "I am looking for Mr Bird".
> Also, since intension seems closely related to abstractions, tu'a looks
> like it can signal intension. But more explicitly, an intensional
> reference to a Doctor is lo jai ka mikce, with jai of course not
> performing a place reordering but raising the sumti out of the abstractor
> in the first place, turning the meaning into "one or more things that have
> the property of being a Doctor".
{jai ka} has a more general meaning than this. You can't guarantee that
it raises the ce'u rather than some other sumti. But even if it does raise
the ce'u, the meaning is equivalent to {lo mikce}, as far as I can see.
--And.