Xref: utzoo comp.ai:3233 sci.lang:4033
Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!ucsd!nosc!humu!uhccux!lee
From: lee@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu (Greg Lee)
Newsgroups: comp.ai,sci.lang
Subject: Re: Fun with the semantics of paradox
Message-ID: <3096@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu>
Date: 28 Jan 89 16:37:37 GMT
References: <19625@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>
Organization: University of Hawaii
Lines: 29

From article <19625@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>, by sp299-ad@violet.berkeley.edu (Celso Alvarez):
" ...  (In fact, aren't we dealing with several, embedded
" logical propositions?).

Yes, and together with the fact that only a non-embedded clause
can be straightforwardly denied, I think that's all there is
to it.  If in a conversation the problem sentence is stated,
and one replies 'No', this would be taken as denying that the
guy is bald.  That's because 'is bald' is predicate of the
matrix sentence -- it has to do with the *syntactic* relation
between assertion and response.  If one wishes to deny that
there is a king of France, which is also part of what was
stated, a simple 'No' won't do.

Although we haven't discussed here the definiteness of the
description 'the king of France', the above is roughly along
the lines of Russell's analysis.

I see no warrant here for distinguishing between assertion and
presupposition if this means any more than matrix versus embedded.
I think the intuition that the sentence is meaningless in the
event there is no king of France is founded on a confusion
between a sentence's being false, on the one hand, and the
syntactic resources offered by natural language for conveying
that it is false, on the other.

Mind the syntax, and the semantics will take care of itself.

		Greg, lee@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu