Donal McEvoy quotes Popper: "Quine also discusses 'All men are mortal', but he takes 'x is mortal' to mean 'there is a time t such that x dies at t'." This doesn't seem quite right to me. When I think of the word 'mortal', I take it mean that all men would die if ... and here one could provide a list of events that one would expect should lead to death. Or, to be mortal is to be subject to all the weaknesses and vulnerabilities one normally ascribes to human life. On this account, it would be rather simple to certify a person as being immortal. Do they suffer? Do they die if ... ? This use of the word 'mortal' by Quine and Popper is peculiar since it presupposes that all mortal people have, as some sort of quality or predicative attribute, their time of death. Evidently, Phil Enns Yogyakarta, Indonesia ------------------------------------------------------------------ To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off, digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html