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Banno

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There's no space for a compromise. I'm engaged in giving the standard account of how modal logic and possible world semantics function. You are up the...
December 14, 2025 at 02:09
The direction of this is ok, I think, but the detail... again, it's intricate. As I explained above, “swans” are {waterfowls, flighted, white} is an i...
December 14, 2025 at 00:53
's confusion comes from collapsing two very different discussions: The model-theoretic discussion: In possible-world semantics, the “actual world” is ...
December 14, 2025 at 00:42
This is problematic. See my comments about existential quantification and domains, above. If we set up a domain that includes Frosty, then we can use ...
December 13, 2025 at 22:29
Notice that swan, frog, book, tree and so on are kinds, not individuals. The analysis of kinds differs from the analysis of individuals. For kinds, we...
December 13, 2025 at 22:13
Indeed. The extension will be different in different interpretations.
December 13, 2025 at 22:04
Things have gone a bit astray, as well as awry. I'm going to step away from the text for a bit, and consider what logic does. Logic is about what we c...
December 13, 2025 at 22:02
All I did was point to the difference between metaphysics and modality. And this is not my account. The account here is the standard account of logici...
December 13, 2025 at 03:11
Well, maybe. More often formal logic is treated as a branch of maths, seen as grounding set theory and so the whole edifice. Whether this is correct r...
December 13, 2025 at 01:38
No. In modal logic there is a difference between the actual world and other possible words. It's that the actual world is w? and the world at which ac...
December 12, 2025 at 22:43
Not sure what "logical truth is here - but the value of pi is presumably the same in all possible worlds, and so a necessary truth. And the case is si...
December 12, 2025 at 22:19
Yes, that's it. except perhaps for some expressions that are true in every possible world. It's not exactly personal preference, more agreed backgroun...
December 12, 2025 at 22:14
Well, I'll say "almost" and point out that Nussbaum, perhaps the foremost ethicist here, is a classicist authority on Aristotle, so let's call it "flo...
December 12, 2025 at 21:23
Not really. The interpretation is the link between all the things and predicates at a world, while the intension kinda goes in the other direction, as...
December 12, 2025 at 07:50
Given that, you are not even in the game, Met.
December 12, 2025 at 03:31
:rofl: Ok.
December 12, 2025 at 02:28
We are verging on some interesting recent stuff here. There's an argument from David Chalmers that the sort of account given above is problematic in t...
December 12, 2025 at 01:28
Whatever you are saying here is very unclear to me. In order to carry the case that "trans women are women" is always false, Phim has show that we oug...
December 12, 2025 at 00:45
We used this form previously, twice. First, in discussing Tarski's semantics, were a 0-tuple predication was seen to be a proposition, a 1-tuple predi...
December 12, 2025 at 00:34
A pathetic response. spoken by you, is about you. "Nixon might not have one the election" is about Nixon, not some other non-physical...whatever That ...
December 11, 2025 at 23:37
Yep. But first let's go back and note this bit: Menzel treats of the different senses of "intensional" very clearly, however he has no choice but to u...
December 11, 2025 at 23:15
So " isn't about you, but about the circumstances... Ok. :meh:
December 11, 2025 at 19:13
Yep. English and Germanic language might lend themselves to these formalisations, perhaps, which is not a surprise since the formalities were mostly d...
December 11, 2025 at 08:07
:grin: The kids are flying there tomorrow, as it happens. South Island. There are worse places...
December 11, 2025 at 07:49
It can? Wittgenstein and Austin and a few others might differ. There's also an obvious problem of circularity.
December 11, 2025 at 07:47
:up: :wink: It's hard to grasp the counterarguments here, but perhaps they do think in terms of "an irreducibly intensional element in the meanings of...
December 11, 2025 at 06:26
Really? Who's theory?
December 11, 2025 at 06:11
Is it even possible? And perhaps more interestingly, how do we tell that a mooted definition is true, or even accurate?
December 11, 2025 at 05:44
You’re asking for a single, universal philosophical definition of “normal,” but the very concept of normal is context-dependent and relative.
December 11, 2025 at 05:17
No. I am saying they are both valid. We can, not we ought.
December 11, 2025 at 04:18
Odd. Who is "...the one where I'm the same fellow who won the lottery" about, if not you?? Basic grammar. Yep. Will do.
December 11, 2025 at 04:16
Is this such a bad thing?
December 11, 2025 at 04:10
Why? No one is ever average... Why not accomodate the wide variety of human lives? Too much trouble? The engineers aren't up to the challenge? :wink:
December 11, 2025 at 04:08
Let's try for clarrity, again. As I explained previously, in the SEP article, extension has a narrowly defined, technical meaning: The extension of a ...
December 11, 2025 at 02:56
Forcing someone to have an operation looks to me to be very far from maximising their potential. Here's a sample list of capabilities, from Nussbaum: ...
December 11, 2025 at 02:14
Do I? These are both Nixon. The Nixon who did not get elected is not a different Nixon to the one who was. They are the very same fellow, but under di...
December 11, 2025 at 02:00
SEP didn't need a definition, but you do. No doubt that's because your explanation will be so much more nuanced...
December 11, 2025 at 01:08
Yes, indeed. I wonder why.
December 11, 2025 at 01:01
You are perhaps intent on using "first lets define our terms" in order to avoid setting out the argument. Lets' use the definition of knowledge in the...
December 11, 2025 at 00:46
The one were you repeatedly conflated metaphysics and semantics? I remember it well. You are making the same mistake here. We can plainly talk about w...
December 11, 2025 at 00:43
You know, I'm not sure if that was a bait-and-switch or just moving the goal.
December 11, 2025 at 00:29
:up: It is a change, though. And this certainly will not help: US plans to order foreign tourists, including Australians, to disclose social media his...
December 11, 2025 at 00:08
Interesting. There's a difference between characterising a thing and referring to it. There was a lively discussion about this in the middle of the la...
December 10, 2025 at 23:50
Other folk might not care about your opinion, but presumably you do. And if your aim is to decide what you ought do, then who's opinion will you trust...
December 10, 2025 at 23:39
Why would I need to? Here's another phrase, prominent in the disability community, and promoted, if perhaps not coined by a very dear friend: If they ...
December 10, 2025 at 23:36
You muddled your scope. De dicto and de re. Twaddle. Both sentences are about Nixon. The same Nixon in two different worlds, each of which is evaluate...
December 10, 2025 at 23:32
You are conflating the epistemic notion of ‘judging’ with the metaphysical or semantic notion of truth. Truth doesn’t require anyone to make a judgmen...
December 10, 2025 at 23:21
"The world is all that is the case" :lol: No, he meant "all that is the case". Empirical, non-empirical, objective, subjective... It's almost a tautol...
December 10, 2025 at 22:52
Noted a few deleted posts - did I miss anything significant?
December 10, 2025 at 22:48