Re: Summary so far on DJUNO

["Jorge J. Llambías" <jorge@INTERMEDIA.COM.AR>]

>>But here you contradict yourself. You just said that when you opine
>>something is true, you need not opine it true-in-the-absolute.
>
>Which is my very point.  "Opine something is true" does NOT mean that my
>opinion IS true/a truth.

I agree.

>  My statement that I am opining it in and of itself
>recognizes that it may not be a truth because that is the nature of
opinions.

I agree.

>In both Lojban (with jinvi) and English (with opine) there is no
implication
>that the x2/object is indeed true, and no need for me to qualify my opinion
>with a metaphysics statement unless I choose to.

I agree.

> My statement is about
>my act of forming/expressing an opinion, and NOT about "truth".  It is a
>figure of speech to use the word "true" to talk about opinions, because we
>don't generally express "opinions" as such when we know they are false

I disagree. When you say that you opine that something is true, then
you are saying that in your opinion that something has all the properties
that true things have.

If you say that in your opinion it is true that all cats are black, then
you're
saying that in your opinion it is not false that all cats are black. I don't
think you can say "I know that not all cats are black, but in my opinion
they are all black." (Well, you can say it, but it doesn't make sense.)

>(unless we are playing devil's advocate in which case we are being ironical

Right.

>- an interesting question, whether playing devil's advocate, expressing an
>opinion you do not actually hold, is a kind of "jinvi" -

Does {jinvi} mean "expressing an opinion" or "holding an opinion"?
I thought the latter. "Opine" in English can be both. "Think" can only
be the latter.

>what if we are not
>sure and are throwing the opinion out on the table as a "trial balloon" is
>that a "jinvi" -

No, it's a throwing, i.e. a {cusku}, or a {xusra}.

>I would be inclined to think that both are jinvi IF we provide
>support for them as true, whether we actually hold them to ^se
>be true).

That is the case for English "opine" but not for English "think".
I thought until now that {jinvi} was for held opinions, not for
any expressed opinion.

 >But only jetnu and fatci actually say that the appropriate sumti actually
IS
>true.  Anything else is at most a context-based implicature and NOT part
>of the semantics of the words in isolation.

That's what we're disagreeing about, isn't it? Maybe {jetnu} and {fatci}
are the only gismu that say that, but certainly many lujvo could be
created that say it. And {djuno} could be defined as saying it (that is
the definition I understood until this debate).

 >Because that is the definition of fatci.  fatci has no meaning distinct
from
>jetnu if it does not mean true-under-all-metaphysics.
>
>For a statement "x1 mlatu", I do not include an explicit metaphysics
because
>the nature of language is to invoke a universe of discourse.

Right!

> We recognize
>that the statement's truth is dependent on that universe of discourse and
>is qualified by any constraints implicitly built into that universe of
doscourse
>including metaphysics.

Right!

> At least this is what I have gathered from earlier
>debates, regarding, for example, "lo".  If I say that lo pavseljirna cu
>tuple voda, is this statement "true"?

Yes.

>                                                               How about if
I say lo pavyseljirna cu
>^se
>se tuple xada?  Is that statement any more true or false?

Depends on the context. Said out of the blue, I would say it's false.

>The statement is
>meaningless unless we invoke a universe of discourse with unicorns in them,
>in which case those unicorns can have as many legs as I want them to have
>since we aren't talking about the real world.

Well, no, because unicorns are fairly standard fictions, with four legs.
If you want special nonce six legged unicorns, you need to provide more
context.

>>I mean "true" in the same sense that I claim {ti mlatu} to be true when
>>I assert {ti mlatu}.
>
>When you "assert" ti mlatu then you are doing so within some previously
>established universe of discourse or you are invoking a new one.  The
>metaphysics is dictated in either case.

Exactly. Just as when I assert that some statement is true.

>But if >I< say "la xorxes cu xusra ledu'u ti mlatu"
>>I< am not saying that "ti mlatu" is true,

I agree.

>and I cannot necessarily say
>under what metaphysics Jorge claims it is true, since he never specified.

In which case you don't know what you're saying. I.e. you're saying that
I assert something, but you don't know what is it that I'm asserting.
If you do understand what you are saying, then you have to understand
what I mean by {ti mlatu} to say {la xorxes cu xusra le du'u ti mlatu},
because the x2 of xusra is not a literal quote of my words, it is your
wording
of my assertion.

>It is not necessarily the case that the universe of discourse under which
>Jorge claimed it is the current one - ledu'u allows for its own prenex and
>hence change of context and quite frequently a true statement about your
>assertions will require such an invocation of context.

Yes, but the speaker has to provide the context. To accurately report
what I am asserting you need to understand it, and then phrase it as
you see fit. It is not simply a matter of repeating my words without
understanding what I mean. {cusku} is for that, using {xusra} requires
that you understand me.

>Similarly, if I talk about la xorxes djuno x2, I am NOT saying that x2 is
true
>any more than I am saying that le se xusra is true merely by referrring to
it.

That's what we are arguing about. You say {djuno} is not defined like that
and that it couldn't possibly be defined like that. I oppose the second.
The first is a matter of definition.

>If I say that la xorxes xusra x2, I am saying that YOU claim it is true,
>and mychoice of metaphsyics for that statement about your nu xusra is
>irrelevant to your mataphysics in making the assertion.

No. If you say that I assert x2 but you have a different metaphysics in
mind, then you'd be wrong, because your reported assertion would not
be the one I made.

co'o mi'e xorxes