At 1:02 PM -0500 1/12/08, John F. Sowa wrote:
>Pat,
>
>I seriously doubt that anyone will successfully respond to that
>challenge:
>
>PH> If anyone can suggest a single axiom which relates propositions
> > or sentences to contexts, and is true both when this means the
> > proposition is true at or in that time, and also when it means
> > the proposition is entailed by a set of beliefs, I would be
> > delighted to be shown it. I have made this challenge repeatedly
> > to proponents of 'contexts' for many years, and have yet to be
> > given an answer. (01)
McCarthy claims that and-distribution applies to both: (02)
(ist c (p & q)) iff ( (ist c p) & (ist c q) ) (03)
but there are certainly some cases of
time-context where this fails, eg there was one
day last year when I was (at various times) in
five states, but I have never been in five states
all at once. So apparently (04)
(ist thatDay (Pat in Mississippi)) & (ist thatDay (Pat in Kentucky)) (05)
but not (06)
(ist thatDay ((Pat in Mississippi) & (Pat in Kentucky))) (07)
>
>That is like asking for a single axiom that relates a verb to
>its object. The approach many linguists recommend is to treat
>the relation between verb and object as a syntactic mechanism
>that can express a variety of "thematic roles", such as
>Theme, Patient, or Result -- any of which may be subdivided
>further for various special cases.
>
>That approach makes it possible to specify different axioms for
>each type of relation. As I said before, my proposal for handling
>contexts is to do something similar: separate the syntax from
>the semantics. Then specify different axioms for each relation
>type that links a proposition to a statement that says something
>about that proposition. (08)
I agree with all this, but (as I already
explained) I then see no reason to even speak of
contexts at all, since the various cases are best
understood on their own terms, and may be best
handled using different logical strategies. (09)
Pat (010)
>
>John
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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