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From: bwk@mbunix.mitre.org (Barry W. Kort)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Fun with the semantics of paradox
Summary: The indefinite meaning of the definite article.
Keywords: Aristotelian Logic, Law of the Excluded Middle,
Message-ID: <44072@linus.UUCP>
Date: 28 Jan 89 23:55:43 GMT
References: <479@aipna.ed.ac.uk> <3038@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu> <43843@linus.UUCP> <32698@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu>
Sender: news@linus.UUCP
Reply-To: bwk@mbunix.mitre.org (Barry Kort)
Organization: International Malefactore and Fulminator, Roaring Rapids, ME
Lines: 30

In article <43843@linus.UUCP>,  I took the assertion,
 
 	"The current king of France is bald."

and put it into symbolic logic notation to get
 
 	For all x, if x is the current king of France, then x is bald.
 
In article <32698@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu> Diana Smetters
<diana@cis.ohio-state.edu> writes:

 > I think that some of the controversy may stem from the
 > alternate translation, where:
 >
 >	"The current king of France is bald."
 >
 > is rendered into logic as:
 >
 > "There exists an x, such that x is the current king of France
 >  and x is bald."
 >
 > due to a different theoretical analysis of definite descriptions. This
 > statement is false, without causing any problems with the law of the
 > excluded middle. 

Ain't it amazing how English is so ambiguous, that even educated
people can reasonably disagree on the semantics of a simple word
like "the"?

--Barry Kort