Re: [ontolog-forum] Truth

[William Frank <williamf.frank@xxxxxxxxx>]

Pat, John, 

Beyond the use of 'that' to relate the truth of propositions to contexts, are there not also many *other* uses for propositions, represented by a 'that" operator,  and might not all these be best explained together, using similar notions (but not necessarily the very same notions, since there may only be a family resemblance between the various uses of 'that'?

for example, with verbs of propositional attitude:  Mary believes that, hopes that, agrees that; with deontic operators: it is required that;  with epistemic operators: knows that; modal operators: necessary that , possible that, speech acts with such as "I decree that" and mixed uses such as "Harry made it known that", and "I wish I had said that", with or without something following the 'that'.

and, given that all of these are interrelated uses of 'that' in ordinary language, might not an understanding of them help?

In this regard, I believed there were two fundamentally *different* schools of thought about the T that follows the 'that' -  1. the relational view: T is a proposition, with a relationship to something else, like a context or a person etc. for example, in the early Wittgenstein, and Keenan, 2. the deconstructionist view: T is a complex set of relations between the subject of the propositional verb (ultimately a person or community of people) and the *pairs* consisting of the words in T tied to the references of those words as understood by the community. for example, in the later Russell and Quine, and Moltmann.

On Wed, Jul 25, 2012 at 7:25 AM, John F Sowa <sowa@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On 7/25/2012 12:45 AM, Pat Hayes wrote:
> JMcC's point was that there was no single "theory" of contexts; that
> contexts are not a natural kind, and a "context" is just anything
> that anyone cares to use in a context kind of a way, ie as something
> that influences truth values and denotations.

I agree with that idea.

> my (often repeated) objection that time, for example, and belief,
> for example, were very different kinds of thing and influenced
> truth in very different kinds of ways...

I also agree with that.

> his response was always that the point of a context logic was not
> to capture the essence or nature of contexts, but rather to be simply
> a general framework for stating inferences which might be influenced
> by *any* kind of context.

And I have no objection to that idea.

JFS
>> "(that p)" is a kind of quasi-quotation that allows
>> variables in p to be bound to quantifiers outside of p.

PH
> Hmm, I don't think it is correct to think of it as quasi-quotation.
> Rather than quoting the sentence, it treats it as defining a
> zero-ary predicate, and creates a term denoting that entity.

The backquote in LISP can be applied to any _expression_.  The IKL
'that' operator can be implemented in LISP by applying backquote
to sentences in some version of logic.

That is an explanation that is meaningless to anybody who does
not know LISP.  But LISP aficionados like that way of talking.

In any case, I agree that your definition is the proper way
to define 'that' in purely CL or IKL terms.

John

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-- 
William Frank

413/376-8167


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