Re: The king of france is ...

Newberry <newberryxy@xxxxxxxxx> writes:

On Apr 19, 4:17 am, "Jesse F. Hughes" <je...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Newberry <newberr...@xxxxxxxxx> writes:
One could object however that since and English sentence must carry
the information about the cardinality of the subject class, neither
(3) nor (4) are equivalent to (2). In that case we would have to
express (2) as

   "The apple in my basket is red or all the apples in my basket are
red."

(4) would be expressed as

    (x)[Bx -> (Rx & (y)(By -> y=x)]        (5)

and (3) would be expressed as

   (x)[Bx -> (Rx & ~(y)(By -> y=x)]        (6)

However it is not clear how (2) could possibly become

    (Ex)[Bx & Rx & (y)(By -> y=x)]        (7)

It is not clear what the hell you mean when you say "(2) could become"
some other sentence.  The sentence (2) says that every apple in my
basket is red.  It does not convey any information about how many
apples there are.  There could be zero, one, or 23.

This is very true.

 (7) says
something more about the situation.  Why do you suppose that (2) is
supposed to "become" (7)?

That is what Russel said.

Who said what? Where?

If you mean Russell's article on denoting, I don't think that he ever
claims a particular formula somehow "becomes" some other formula.

Anyway, another way to express "there is one apple in my basket and it
is red" is:

  (x)(Bx -> Rx) & (Ex)(Bx & (Ay)(By -> x=y)).      (8)

Is it clear how (2) could "become" (8)?

The problem is not how to express "there is one apple in my basket in
it is red." The problem is that (3) cannot be used to express (2) when
there is only apple in the basket.

You seem to have changed direction and now you're talking about
whether a certain English sentence expresses a formula or not. Before
you were asking whether a formula expresses an English sentence or
not. Was this intentional?

Anyway, if you intend to point out that plain English treats
quantification somewhat differently than formal logic, then surely we
agree. If someone told me "All the apples in my basket are red" in a
normal conversational context, I'd be a little surprised to learn that
there was only one (or no) apples in the basket. But so what? What
consequence do you want to draw from this observation?

--
Jesse F. Hughes
"This Trojan appears to utilize a function of the Windows Media DRM
designed to enable license delivery scenarios as part of a social
engineering attack." -- MS candidly explains the role of DRM licenses
.