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From: jrk@s1.sys.uea.ac.uk (Richard Kennaway CMP RA)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Fun with the semantics of paradox
Keywords: Aristotelian Logic, Law of the Excluded Middle
Message-ID: <416@s1.sys.uea.ac.uk>
Date: 27 Jan 89 19:02:45 GMT
References: <479@aipna.ed.ac.uk> <3038@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu> <43843@linus.UUCP>
Reply-To: jrk@uea-sys.UUCP (Richard Kennaway)
Organization: University of East Anglia, Norwich
Lines: 21

In article <43843@linus.UUCP> bwk@mbunix.mitre.org (Barry Kort) writes:
>Let's play with the assertion,
>
>	"The current king of France is bald."
>
>If we put this into symbolic logic notation, we get
>
>	For all x, if x is the current king of France, then x is bald.
[further discussion deleted]

I would part company with you here.  Your rephrasing in logic doesnt
seem to me to mean the same.  If someone unaware of the French system
of government asked you "Is the current king of France bald?" would
you reply "No"?  I would reply "France is not a monarchy".  The statement
"The current king of France is bald" makes a false presupposition, and
if I were trying to formalise the English language, I would not want to
assign any truth-value to that sentence.

-- 
Richard Kennaway                SYS, University of East Anglia, Norwich, U.K.
uucp:	...mcvax!ukc!uea-sys!jrk	Janet:	kennaway@uk.ac.uea.sys