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From: sp299-ad@violet.berkeley.edu (Celso Alvarez)
Newsgroups: comp.ai,sci.lang
Subject: Re: Fun with the semantics of paradox
Summary: we need a context; presuppositions
Message-ID: <19779@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: 1 Feb 89 08:29:00 GMT
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In article <429@rpi.edu> weltyc@cs.rpi.edu (Christopher A. Welty) writes:
CAW> In article <19625@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> sp299-ad@violet.berkeley.edu
CAW> (Celso Alvarez) writes:

CA>  the statement "The current king of France" (uttered while pointing at a
CA>  portrait or photograph) is false in itself,

CAW> You are adding here a context to the statement, implying that the more
CAW> formal meaning of the statement is `This is the current king of
CAW> France'.  But that, I would claim, is a COMPLETELY different statement
CAW> than just "The current king of France", because this statement is NOT
CAW> false.

If for you "The current king of France" is NOT false (your emphasis), then
it is true.  Its meaning is `There is a king in France at present'.  But "The
current king of France is bald" must be false, because, while there happens
to be a king, there happens to be no bald person who is the king of France.

Without adding a (temporal and spatial) context, however, "The current king
of France" is true.  It just depends on when the statement was uttered.
My point is, the context affects the truth-value of "The current king of
France" as much as it affects that of "The current king of France is bald".

CAW> I claim that the understanding of this statement requires a notion
CAW> beyond that of truth or falsehood.

I don't see any basic difference between "The current king of France"
and "There is a king in France at present" in terms of propositional
content.  The problem is that truth/falsehood is linguistically built in
presuppositions.  The typical example of linguistic presupposition (profusely
employed by lawyers and other experts of interrogation) runs along the
lines of "Did John stop drinking heavily?"; the fact that John didn't use
to drink heavily cannot be denied just with a simple "yes".

I prefer to see the truth-value of utterances in terms of native (e.g.
speakers') categories.  If the categories employed in philosophy of
language or logic contradict those of natural conversationists, speech
act theory is futile.  While most people probably recognize the
difference in the falsehood of "The current king..." and that of "The
Earth is square", if presented with the statement about the king, people
would probably say 'It's false', 'It's absurd' or 'It makes no sense'.
If forced to choose between true-false, some might say 'It's false,
because it makes no sense'.  But I doubt anyone would reason 'It's
TRUE, because it makes no sense'.

And how about the logicity of these non-sequitors (I'll translate)?:
	It was Thursday, yet it was raining ("Era jueves, y sin embargo llovia")
	Although Camoes was Portuguese, he was one-eyed ("Camoes, aunque era
			portugues, era tuerto").
or...
	It's half overcrowded in here.
	I'm mildly/fairly exhausted.
	The prisoner was sort of riddled with bullets.

Celso Alvarez
sp299-ad@violet.berkeley.edu