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On 9/21/06, John E. Clifford <clifford-j@hidden.email> wrote:
As I keep pointing out, the real world is a legitimate model. If someting fails in the real world case, then if fails outright.
Is a model where the universe of discourse is restricted to numbers
a legitimate model? {mi viska lo gerku} fails in that model, because
neither {mi} nor {lo gerku} have referents there. Then {mi viska lo gerku}
fails outright? That doesn't sound right. Just because {mi djica
lo pavyseljirna} fails in a model where all the referents must be in
the extension of {zasti}, it does not mean that the utterance fails
outright. It only means that such a model is not capable of dealing
with that utterance.
In short, of course I can claim to want a unicorn in a domain that contains no unicorns; to claim otherwise is to fly in the face of linguistic evidence (try picking up that "a unicorn" with "it" in a declarative sentence, for example, let alone by a quantifier).
That's not that difficult: A: I want a unicorn. It's something I have always wanted. B: But what is it? I've never heard of unicorns before. A: It's a mythical creature. It's similar to a horse with a horn on its forehead.
> Two things can be the same F and different G's, that's the only > significance of relative identity. But then it is odd to talk about a different kind of identity, since it is only about comparing things in different way or or different things in the same way.
It's not my choice of terminology.
It is just identity and the issue is what it is identity between. This does seem to catch something of what we actually do when we come across a real case, but that catching can be done as well with just one identity and – as here – different ways of comparing things. Creating a new kind of identity where none is needed or used (except to confuse people) seems a bad idea.
People seem to be confused by absolute identity. For example, in:
(1) la superman du la klark kent
(2) ti pixra la superman
------------------------------------
(3) ti pixra la klark kent
People say that (1) and (2) seem to be true, that the reasoning seems
to be valid, and yet (3) appears to be false. Paradox!
Some people try to get around the paradox with talk of intensional
contexts and all sorts of contortions with (2) and (3).
Recognition of relative identity allows us to see that (1) (absolute identity)
is false. What is true is a relative identity claim:
(1') la superman mintu la klark kent lo ka prenu
but this fact is not enough to conclude that {la superman} and {la klark kent}
are co-referential terms. (2) is still true and (3) is still false,
and there is no
paradox because (1') does not warrant intersubstitution of terms like (1)
with absolute identity does.
> But then we have to be careful with the claim
> {la superman du la klark kent}. It is very often false. And if we can
> see that that claim is false, there is no failure of substitution of
> co-referring terms since we don't have co-referring terms to begin
> with.
I am not sure that it is ever false, but it is true that it is, then,
yes, the problem does not arise. So the trick is to know when it is
false and that would be handled logically by having different
referring expressions for referring to the various things that are now
all referred to by "Superman" and "Clark Kent."
That would be great, but since all those things are potentially infinite, it's impractical/impossible to have a different expression for each.
You have yet to show that *any* of the problems can be solved by simple reference.
The three "paradoxes" of intensional contexts are, succintly:
(1) failure of intersubstitution of co-referential terms.
(2) failure of existential commitment.
(3) ambiguity between unspecific and specific readings.
The solution to (1) is to recognize that what at first sight may appear to be
co-referential terms, are not really co-referential. Just because two things
are the same something does not mean that they are one thing. Just because
{la superman mintu la klark kent lo ka prenu} does not mean {la superman du
la klark kent}. So there is no failure of intersubstitution of
co-referential terms
because the terms in question are not co-referential to begin with.
The solution to (2) involves recognizing that commitment to having a referent
as a member of the domain of discourse in no way entails commitment to
that referent existing in the world, which is the apparent paradoxical
commitment.
As for (3), yes, we have to admit that any reference is inherently
vague. But it
is important to realize that the ambiguity is not just between two options but
a whole tree of options, so a simple marker does not solve the issue. {le}
and {lo'e} can serve as pointers towards one or the other end of the scale,
to help in the context, but in the end they only serve as relative markers,
not absolute.
If you mean by that that every expression in all contexts refers to its referent, that is precisely the situation that I am trying to get in Lojban.
I'd say "in each context", not "in all contexts". I'm not sure how you mean the scope of "all contexts" to work there with respect to "its referents". The referent of an expression may vary from context to context.
For some expressions that referent will
be intensional (as it is for some expressions already), for other
extensional.
By the way, it seems to me that the right thing to use for "qua" is a
modality (which I can't find, suggesting another screw up) for "by
standard." For the case of Clinton, something derived from {te xamgu}
seems to be just right.
{ma'i}?
mu'o mi'e xorxes