Does everybody agree that

"All panduks are green"

is meaningless?

On Apr 6, 6:45 pm, Newberry <newberr...@gmail.com> wrote:

Does everybody agree that

    "All panduks are green"

is meaningless?

Panduk is a city in Indonesia. It's very tropical there.
That could be what you mean by it being green.
It seems to me you have to be a bit more specific.
I suppose what you want to say is, if a collection of
letters looks like a word but it has no definition, then
it is meaningless?

Newberry <newberr...@gmail.com> writes:
Does everybody agree that

    "All panduks are green"

is meaningless?

If "panduk" is a meaningless term, then that sentence is meaningless.

If "panduk" is a defined term, then that sentence is meaningful
whether there are panduks or not.

Does everybody agree that

"All panduks are green"

is meaningless?

Would it be fair to say that "all panduks are green" is meanigless
because "panduk" does not have a denotatum? But "round square" does
not have a denotatum either. So

"All round squares are green"

ought to be meaningless as well.

Newberry says...

Would it be fair to say that "all panduks are green" is meanigless
because "panduk" does not have a denotatum? But "round square" does
not have a denotatum either. So

   "All round squares are green"

ought to be meaningless as well.

This depends on how you interpret statements of the
form "All Xs are Ys". The most straightforward interpretation
is "forall objects o, if o is an X, then o is a Y". Under
this interpretation, if there are no Xs, then "All Xs are Ys"
is vacuously true.

When people say that "All Xs are Ys" makes no sense if there
are no Xs, what they really mean is that it makes no sense
(in most cases) to *utter* such a statement. Why bring up
the properties of Xs if there are no Xs? But that could be
considered part of the pragmatics of language, rather than
part of the semantics.

It's the same sort of issue as when someone says "If it rains
today, then we will cancel our trip." If the trip is going to
be canceled *anyway*, regardless of the weather, then it is
a little strange to bring up the possibility of rain. But
logically, the statement is true, even if there is no good
reason for someone to utter it.

--
Daryl McCullough
Ithaca, NY

It does not follow that the above is true in any sensible sense of the
word "true."

BTW, I never got a straight answer to this one: do all unicorns have
two horns?

Newberry <newberr...@gmail.com> writes:
For all objects o, if o is a panduk, then o is green.

Using the phrase "for all objects .. if X then Y" is not really an
interpretation. The interpretation is the possible state of affairs of
which the sentence is a picture of. "For all objects o, if o is a
round square, then o is green" is not a picture of anything.

This "picture of possible states of affairs" is your own particular
notion of an interpretation.  It doesn't seem to be anyone else's.



I understand that according to boolean algebra (P & ~P) -> Q is a
tautology and by generalization we get

 (x)((Px & ~Px) -> Qx)

It does not follow that the above is true in any sensible sense of the
word "true."

BTW, I never got a straight answer to this one: do all unicorns have
two horns?

You're a liar.  You got a straight answer.  In

87lkejtmme....@phiwumbda.org>, I wrote:

,----
| If there are no existing unicorns, then the following are both true:
|
|   Every unicorn has two horns.
|   No unicorn has two horns.
|
| Why are you pretending that this is all new to you?
`----

On the other hand, you never answered my question: do you really
believe the following sentence is literally meaningless?

  Every four-legged bird has four knees.

Do you also think that both of the unicorn sentences above are
literally meaningless?
 

"I've been thinking about my problems with getting any kind of
admission that my math arguments showing the core error in mathematics
are correct, so I've gone to marketing books."  
  -- James S. Harris, on when mathematics isn't enough

Newberry says...



On Apr 7, 9:37=A0am, stevendaryl3...@yahoo.com (Daryl McCullough) wrote:
This depends on how you interpret statements of the
form "All Xs are Ys". The most straightforward interpretation
is "forall objects o, if o is an X, then o is a Y". Under
this interpretation, if there are no Xs, then "All Xs are Ys"
is vacuously true.

For all objects o, if o is a panduk, then o is green.

Using the phrase "for all objects .. if X then Y" is not really an
interpretation.

Well, it's good enough to decide whether the sentence
is true or false. If we happen to know that there are
no panduks, then we know that the above implication is
true.

The interpretation is the possible state of affairs of
which the sentence is a picture of.

Well, the state of affairs described by
For all objects o, if o is a panduk, then o is green
is that *either* there are no panduks at all,

or
there are panduks, and each one is green. That's
pretty clear to me.

I understand that according to boolean algebra (P & ~P) -> Q is a
tautology and by generalization we get

(x)((Px & ~Px) -> Qx)

It does not follow that the above is true in any sensible sense of the
word "true."

That's false. In any sensible sense of the word true,
"For all objects o, if o is a panduk, then o is green"
is true if there are no panduks.

BTW, I never got a straight answer to this one: do all unicorns have
two horns?

The strict answer is "yes". However, as I said, there is a difference
between the semantics of language and the pragmatics of language.
"All unicorns have two horns" is a true sentence, but it isn't
a sentence that anyone would ever naturally utter unless there
were reason to believe that there were some unicorns somewhere.

The *pragmatic* understanding of language use leads us to believe
that a detail was only mentioned if it is relevant. If I say
"There are no brown unicorns", then you would wonder
why I specified "brown". Why didn't I just say "There are no
unicorns, period"? The fact that I brought up the color of
the unicorn may suggest to you that I might believe in unicorns,
but only in white unicorns (or some other color besides brown).
But this is an inference about *me* and about what purpose I
might have in making a statement. It isn't strictly speaking
part of the meaning of the sentence.

For all objects o, if o is a panduk, then o is green.

Using the phrase "for all objects .. if X then Y" is not really an
interpretation. The interpretation is the possible state of affairs of
which the sentence is a picture of. "For all objects o, if o is a
round square, then o is green" is not a picture of anything.

I understand that according to boolean algebra (P & ~P) -> Q is a
tautology and by generalization we get

(x)((Px & ~Px) -> Qx)

It does not follow that the above is true in any sensible sense of the
word "true."

BTW, I never got a straight answer to this one: do all unicorns have
two horns?

On Apr 7, 9:37=A0am, stevendaryl3...@yahoo.com (Daryl McCullough) wrote:

This depends on how you interpret statements of the
form "All Xs are Ys". The most straightforward interpretation
is "forall objects o, if o is an X, then o is a Y". Under
this interpretation, if there are no Xs, then "All Xs are Ys"
is vacuously true.

For all objects o, if o is a panduk, then o is green.

Using the phrase "for all objects .. if X then Y" is not really an
interpretation.

The interpretation is the possible state of affairs of
which the sentence is a picture of.

I understand that according to boolean algebra (P & ~P) -> Q is a
tautology and by generalization we get

(x)((Px & ~Px) -> Qx)

It does not follow that the above is true in any sensible sense of the
word "true."

BTW, I never got a straight answer to this one: do all unicorns have
two horns?

On Apr 8, 4:33 am, "Jesse F. Hughes" <je...@phiwumbda.org> wrote:
,----
| If there are no existing unicorns, then the following are both true:
|
|   Every unicorn has two horns.
|   No unicorn has two horns.
|
| Why are you pretending that this is all new to you?
`----

On the other hand, you never answered my question: do you really
believe the following sentence is literally meaningless?

  Every four-legged bird has four knees.

I suppose that could be a bird with a genetic defect and four legs.
most likely it would have four knees, so the sentence would be true.
Not sure what you are getting at. You need to come with a better
example.

Do you also think that both of the unicorn sentences above are
literally meaningless?
 
I already told you ten times that unicorns are possible therefore no
sentence about them is meaningless but not true. "Every unicorn has
two horns" is analytic and hence false. "All unicorns are green" is
synthetic and neither true nor false. It obviously expresses a
possible state of affairs. "All round squares are green" is
meaningless.

If X represents "round square" then what state of affairs is "for
all objects o, if o is a round square, then o is green" is a picture
of.

If X represents "round square" then what state of affairs is "for all
objects o, if o is a round square, then o is green" is a picture of.

The interpretation is the possible state of affairs of
which the sentence is a picture of.

Well, the state of affairs described by
For all objects o, if o is a panduk, then o is green
is that *either* there are no panduks at all,

This is represented by "there are no panduks" or " 'panduk' has no
denotatum", not by "all panduks are green."