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And Rosta scripsit: > (I take it that some bears eat plants?) Every kind of bear eats plants with the sole exception of polar bears. (It is a point of dispute whether giant pandas are bears, raccoons, or sui generis, but if they are bears, they are the only bears that eat no meat.) > Yes. But I think Mr US President is not a subkind of Mr White Male, even > though there is no US President who is not a white male. I have tried and > failed to think of cases where X is a subkind of Y, Y is a subkind of Z, > but X is not a subkind of Z, and indeed would claim that this is impossible. The second point is uncontroversial (it's a direct consequence of the transitivity of the subset relation), but the first seems to me doubtful. You are going to say that it is a mere contingency that all presidents hitherto have been white males, but it seems to me that when dealing with Mr., what is actually the case rules. Mr. Goat is a subkind of Mr. Quadruped, notwithstanding that we may be able to engineer six-legged goats some day. It was only after the discovery of Australia that we (i.e. non-Aboriginals) learned that Mr. Swan was not a subkind of Mr. White: before that date it would have been perverse to claim otherwise. -- A witness cannot give evidence of his John Cowan age unless he can remember being born. jcowan@hidden.email --Judge Blagden http://www.ccil.org/~cowan