🚀 go-pugleaf

>Posted on 20 Dec 1992 at 18:54:07 by oleary@staff.tc.umn.edu

J:
>>Consider the sentence which would come first on an alphabetized
>>list of 100-word sentences of English.
>>
>>It is either a true sentence of English or a false one. No one has
>>ever interpreted it (I'll wager). With the possible exception of
>>one of us, no one ever will.

Response from O'Leary:

>Not only do you not define truth with respect to sentences of English, your
>example is circular.  The sentence is or isn't syntactically correct and may
>or may not have semantic content.  By saying that the sentence is on a list
>of English sentences, you imply that it is syntactically correct.  The
>semantic content of the sentence, however, still depends on it being
>interpreted.

Of COURSE I didn't define truth with respect to sentences of English.
Would you like me to do so? What sorts of criteria must I meet? If
O'Leary insists, I will do my best to define truth for English, but
I'm not promising anything.

The rest of the objection is very close to jibberish.
By saying that the sentence is on a list of English sentences I
OBVIOUSLY imply that it is syntactically correct. Does O'Leary
deny that the syntactically correct sentences of English are
enumerable? They are obviously enumerable by an alphabetic list.
Does he deny that there are ANY 100-word sentences of English?
Or that the set of 100-word sentences of English is enumerated
by alphabetization? Or that the list has a first entry?

The semantic content of a sentence depends on its being interpreted
in one sense. This is precisely the point I have been making.
If we regard English sentences as intepreted, then they have a truth
value. Whether they have truth value is independent of whether anyone
has ever actually interpreted them, or whether anyone ever will
interpret them. THAT was the point Randall was making. He worried
that he could not give an example of a sentence that no one has
ever interpreted or ever will. So I gave an example, not by
constructing it but by describing a definite English sentence.


The complaint that my example is "circular" is ridiculous. No circularity
has been pointed to.

Jamie