FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   4   5   6   7   8   9   10   11   12   13   14   15   16   17   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28  
29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   >>   >|  
asserts as to the _other_ portion of the Class "ducks," viz. "Mrs. Bond has no gray ducks _out of_ this village". In the Appendix I have given a new version of the Problem of the "Five Liars." My object, in doing so, is to escape the subtle and mysterious difficulties which beset all attempts at regarding a Proposition as being its own Subject, or a Set of Propositions as being Subjects for one another. It is certainly, a most bewildering and unsatisfactory theory: one cannot help feeling that there is a great lack of _substance_ in all this shadowy host----that, as the procession of phantoms glides before us, there is not _one_ that we can pounce upon, and say "_Here_ is a Proposition that _must_ be either true or false!"----that it is but a Barmecide Feast, to which we have been bidden----and that its prototype is to be found in that mythical island, whose inhabitants "earned a precarious living by taking in each others' washing"! By simply translating "telling 2 Truths" into "taking _both_ of 2 condiments (salt and mustard)," "telling 2 Lies" into "taking _neither_ of them" and "telling a Truth and a Lie (order not specified)" into "taking only _one_ condiment (it is not specified _which_)," I have escaped all those metaphysical puzzles, and have produced a Problem which, when translated into a Set of symbolized Premisses, furnishes the very same _Data_ as were furnished by the Problem of the "Five Liars." pg-x The coined words, introduced in previous editions, such as "Eliminands" and "Retinends", perhaps hardly need any apology: they were indispensable to my system: but the new plural, here used for the first time, viz. "Soriteses", will, I fear, be condemned as "bad English", unless I say a word in its defence. We have _three_ singular nouns, in English, of plural _form_, "series", "species", and "Sorites": in all three, the awkwardness, of using the same word for both singular and plural, must often have been felt: this has been remedied, in the case of "series" by coining the plural "serieses", which has already found its way into the dictionaries: so I am no rash innovator, but am merely "following suit", in using the new plural "Soriteses". In conclusion, let me point out that even those, who are obliged to study _Formal_ Logic, with a view to being able to answer Examination-Papers in that subject, will find the study of _Symbolic_ Logic m
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   4   5   6   7   8   9   10   11   12   13   14   15   16   17   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28  
29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

plural

 

taking

 

telling

 

Problem

 

series

 

singular

 

Soriteses

 

English

 

Proposition

 
Premisses

system
 

introduced

 

previous

 
editions
 

coined

 

Eliminands

 
apology
 

furnishes

 
furnished
 

Retinends


indispensable
 

awkwardness

 

conclusion

 

obliged

 

Examination

 

Papers

 

subject

 

Symbolic

 

answer

 

Formal


innovator

 

species

 

Sorites

 
defence
 

condemned

 

symbolized

 

serieses

 
dictionaries
 

coining

 
remedied

bewildering
 
unsatisfactory
 

Subject

 

Propositions

 

Subjects

 

theory

 

shadowy

 

procession

 
phantoms
 

substance