[lit-ideas] Re: Or Not

  • From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: "lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Tue, 23 Apr 2013 14:38:11 +0100 (BST)

The answers JLS gives are unsatisfactory. I suggest a better answer, deploying 
'vel', is as follows.
 
'p vel non-p' must always be true - there is no state of affairs that can 
falsify 'p vel non-p' in the sense where a statement can be falsified because 
it rules out a logically possible state of affairs and should that state of 
affairs obtain then the statement is false. [I.e. the sense of falsifiable is 
here not restricted to 'falsifiable by obervation'.]
 
Where any proposition 'p' is stated together with "Or not", where "Or not" 
represents the negation of 'p', then this conjunction is the same as 'p vel 
non-p': because such a conjunction fails to rule out any possible state of 
affairs, it is compatible with any possible state of affairs. 
 
So it must, logically, be correct that 'p vel non-p' - but this correctness 
comes at a high price. By failing to assert anything that is incompatible with 
any possible state of affairs, the conjunction fails to assert anything of 
interest about any possible state of affairs.It is of as little interest as a 
tautology, the correctness of which comes at a similarly high price.
 
Falsificationistically yours,
Donal
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

From: "Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx" <Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx>
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 
Sent: Tuesday, 23 April 2013, 11:06
Subject: [lit-ideas] Or Not




In a message dated 4/20/2013 8:55:53  P.M. UTC-02, 
donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx writes:
If one adds "or not" as a  qualifier to everything, does that mean we are 
right about everything or not? Or  does it just mean that by claiming both an 
assertion and its negation we are not  taking the risk of being wrong about 
anything we claim, or not?  

We have discussed this before. The locus classicus, as R. D. Fenton, a  
Latin teacher, calls it, is, no doubt, Alice in Wonderland:

THE WHITE KNIGHT (to Alice): You look sad. Let me sing you a song  to 
comfort you.

ALICE: Is it too long?

THE WHITE KNIGHT: It _is_ long. But very _very_ beautiful. Everybody  that 
hears me sing it -- either it brings the tears into their eyes, or 

ALICE: Or? ("Alice interrupted, for the Knight had made a sudden  pause.")

THE WHITE KNIGHT: Or not.

---- 

McEvoy's analysis:

THESIS 1: 

McEvoy's question:

"If one adds "or not" as a qualifier to 
everything, does that mean we 
are right about everything or not?"


Answer (One Of Many): Or not, I guess.

THESIS 2:

McEvoy's question:

"Or [rather] does it just mean that by 
claiming both an assertion and its 
negation we are not taking the risk 
of being wrong about anything we 
claim, or not? 

Answer (One of Many): Again, or not, I guess.

-----

The best way to deal with this is symbolically.

I will introduce "v" as the disjunction operator and refer to "The  
Genealogy of Disjunction", a book -- or rather, the title of a book.

The Latins used "vel" as "or". The particle survives in Italian, in  some 
place names.

On the other hand, the Latins also used "aut". 

In English, "or" is short of "other", which complicates the logical form.  
Strictly, it means "second".

Aristotle saw this and talks of a _third_ man as an impossibility (in his  
view).

---- And so on.

Cheers,

Speranza




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