Guido Imaguire<\/p>\n
Federal University of Rio de Janeiro<\/p>\n
19 December 2017, 16:00<\/strong><\/p>\n Faculdade de Letras de Lisboa<\/strong><\/p>\n Room B1<\/strong><\/p>\n Abstract:<\/strong> In his book\u00a0Logic and How It Gets That Way<\/em>,\u00a0Jacquette (2010) presents \u2018the formalization paradox\u2019 which emerges from the attempt to formalize a sentence like \u2018Some monkey devours every craisin\u2019, where craisins are imaginary non-existent fruits. From this paradox Jacquette concludes the expressive inadequacy of classical predicate quantificational logic. In this paper I analyze the three assumptions made in the emergence of the paradox, viz.: (i) colloquial expressions of the same logical form can and should be formally symbolized by applying the same symbolization schema; (ii) \u2018Some monkey devours every raisin\u2019 is correctly translated as \u2203x (Mx \u2227 \u2200y (Ry\u00a0\u00ae\u00a0Dxy)); (iii) uninstantiated predicates can legitimately enter into (meaningful, true or false) predicate-quantificational symbolizations. I fully accept (iii), but reject both (i) and (ii). \u00a0I argue, firstly, that (i) has at first glance two possible interpretations, one trivial and one false. So, I try to establish a third and more reasonable interpretation. Based on this interpretation I argue that \u2203x (Mx \u2227 \u2200y (Ry\u00a0\u00ae\u00a0Dxy)) is not the adequate formalization of \u2018Some monkey devours every raisin\u2019. My basic claim is based on a generalization of Russell\u2019s theory of descriptions: just as most sentences of natural language which contain definite descriptions are viewed as entailing existential force which must be made explicit in formalization,\u00a0so do we also consider many, although not all, sentences which contain general terms.\u00a0A criterion will be presented and defended for deciding in each possible case if a sentence entails existential force.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Guido Imaguire Federal University of Rio de Janeiro A Semantic Criterion for Existential Import 19 December 2017, 16:00 Faculdade de Letras de Lisboa Room B1 Abstract: In his book\u00a0Logic and How It Gets That Way,\u00a0Jacquette (2010) presents \u2018the formalization paradox\u2019 which emerges from the attempt to formalize a sentence like \u2018Some monkey devours every craisin\u2019, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":4,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-572","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cful.letras.ulisboa.pt\/lancog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cful.letras.ulisboa.pt\/lancog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cful.letras.ulisboa.pt\/lancog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cful.letras.ulisboa.pt\/lancog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cful.letras.ulisboa.pt\/lancog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=572"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cful.letras.ulisboa.pt\/lancog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cful.letras.ulisboa.pt\/lancog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cful.letras.ulisboa.pt\/lancog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cful.letras.ulisboa.pt\/lancog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}