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From: John Dunlop on 13 Feb 2010 06:36 Evertjan.: > "No bachelors are married" can be disproved by showing just one married > "bachelor". > > Just produce a married person with B.S. or B.A. after the name. Right, if you don't define "bachelor" as a man who is not (and never has been) married. If, on the other hand, you do define "bachelor" as a man who is not (and never has been) married, then the proposition underlying the sentence "No bachelors are married" is true. The same sentence can of course express different propositions, but it is the proposition that is said to be true or false. -- John
From: rf on 13 Feb 2010 06:54 "John Dunlop" <dunlop.john(a)ymail.com> wrote in message news:pan.2010.02.13.11.36.22.974702(a)ymail.com... > Evertjan.: > >> "No bachelors are married" can be disproved by showing just one married >> "bachelor". >> >> Just produce a married person with B.S. or B.A. after the name. > > Right, if you don't define "bachelor" as a man who is not (and never has > been) married. If, on the other hand, you do define "bachelor" as a man > who is not (and never has been) married, then the proposition underlying > the sentence "No bachelors are married" is true. The same sentence can of > course express different propositions, but it is the proposition that is > said to be true or false. So the term "bachelor" shoud have been defined up front, before the assertion about them being married or not was made. Indeed the actual definition of "married" should have also been provided. "No slithy toves are mimsy." Prove or disprove that.
From: John Dunlop on 13 Feb 2010 07:54 rf: > So the term "bachelor" shoud have been defined up front, before the > assertion about them being married or not was made. Indeed the actual > definition of "married" should have also been provided. Discussing formal logic in terms of natural language requires good faith. As an example of a proposition that can't be disproved, the proposition underlying the sentence "No bachelors are married" can't, in good faith, be expressed as "No people who hold undergraduate degrees are married". The relevant proposition could be expressed as "No man who is not (and never has been) married is married". -- John
From: dorayme on 13 Feb 2010 16:28 In article <slrnhncr8k.3pn.spamspam(a)bowser.marioworld>, Ben C <spamspam(a)spam.eggs> wrote: > On 2010-02-12, dorayme <doraymeRidThis(a)optusnet.com.au> wrote: > > In article <slrnhnbofn.5tn.spamspam(a)bowser.marioworld>, > > Ben C <spamspam(a)spam.eggs> wrote: > > > >> On 2010-02-12, dorayme <doraymeRidThis(a)optusnet.com.au> wrote: > [...] > >> > The second is probably the equivalent of > >> > > >> > 3. It is raining somewhere in the universe > >> > > >> > And, trust me again, you cannot disprove this by producing one > >> > positive case of it not-raining somewhere. <g> > >> > >> All you have to produce is one positive case of a universe in which it > >> isn't raining anywhere :) > > > > The universe being referred to in 2 and 3 is ours, it is a member > > of the set of all possible universes. Just one possible rainless > > universe will not cut it even if one could establish such a > > thing. > > Yes, I was using universe in the strict sense of the word that implies > there is only one, the actual one. OK. In that case maybe just! <g> To be needlessly humourless (why I am still grinning I don't know though): it is now a stretch to think of it as an 'exception to the rule' which is really the sense of "one positive case of it not raining anywhere". You know, all swans are white, but hang on, in Australia there are some black ones... In other words, the whole show has a universe as its scope... If we abandon this perspective, we can also say that just one case of something can prove a rule (as against Hume). -- dorayme
From: Ben C on 14 Feb 2010 13:17
On 2010-02-13, dorayme <doraymeRidThis(a)optusnet.com.au> wrote: > In article <slrnhncr8k.3pn.spamspam(a)bowser.marioworld>, > Ben C <spamspam(a)spam.eggs> wrote: > >> On 2010-02-12, dorayme <doraymeRidThis(a)optusnet.com.au> wrote: >> > In article <slrnhnbofn.5tn.spamspam(a)bowser.marioworld>, >> > Ben C <spamspam(a)spam.eggs> wrote: >> > >> >> On 2010-02-12, dorayme <doraymeRidThis(a)optusnet.com.au> wrote: >> [...] >> >> > The second is probably the equivalent of >> >> > >> >> > 3. It is raining somewhere in the universe >> >> > >> >> > And, trust me again, you cannot disprove this by producing one >> >> > positive case of it not-raining somewhere. <g> >> >> >> >> All you have to produce is one positive case of a universe in which it >> >> isn't raining anywhere :) >> > >> > The universe being referred to in 2 and 3 is ours, it is a member >> > of the set of all possible universes. Just one possible rainless >> > universe will not cut it even if one could establish such a >> > thing. >> >> Yes, I was using universe in the strict sense of the word that implies >> there is only one, the actual one. > > OK. In that case maybe just! <g> > > To be needlessly humourless (why I am still grinning I don't know > though): it is now a stretch to think of it as an 'exception to > the rule' which is really the sense of "one positive case of it > not raining anywhere". You know, all swans are white, but hang > on, in Australia there are some black ones... In other words, the > whole show has a universe as its scope... This was what I meant when I said ":)". > If we abandon this perspective, we can also say that just one case of > something can prove a rule (as against Hume). I think Hume would be OK with it if you exhaustively demonstrated the rule in 100% of all possible cases, which is what we'd be doing, in all one of them. |