{"id":12798,"date":"2009-02-24T07:30:12","date_gmt":"2009-02-24T07:30:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2009\/02\/24\/three-senses-of-or\/"},"modified":"2009-02-24T07:30:12","modified_gmt":"2009-02-24T07:30:12","slug":"three-senses-of-or","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2009\/02\/24\/three-senses-of-or\/","title":{"rendered":"Three Senses of &#8216;Or&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"firstinpost\" style=\"TEXT-ALIGN: justify\"><font face=\"Georgia\">\u2018Or\u2019 is a troublesome particle in dire need of regimentation. Besides its two disjunctive meanings, the inclusive and the exclusive, there is also what I call the \u2018or\u2019 of identity. The inclusive meaning, corresponding to the Latin <em>vel<\/em>, is illustrated by \u2018He is either morally obtuse or intellectually obtuse.\u2019 This allows that the person in question may be both. <\/font><\/p>\n<div align=\"justify\" class=\"trigger\" id=\"shen258uk7.61\" style=\"DISPLAY: none\">&#0160;<\/div>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><font face=\"Georgia\">The exclusive meaning, corresponding to the Latin <em>aut<\/em>, is exemplified by the standard menu inscription, \u2018soup or salad,\u2019 which means one or the other, but not both. Logicians view the inclusive \u2018or\u2019 as a basic propositional connective. Thus our first example would be symbolized by <em>p v q<\/em>, where <em>p<\/em> is the proposition expressed by \u2018He is morally obtuse\u2019; <em>q<\/em> the proposition expressed by \u2018He is intellectually obtuse\u2019; with \u2018v\u2019 &#8212; in honor of <em>vel<\/em> &#8212; standing for inclusive disjunction. Exclusive \u2018or\u2019 can now be defined as follows: <em>p aut q =<sub>df<\/sub> p v q &amp; ~(p &amp; q)<\/em>, where the tilde and the ampersand, both propositional connectives, represent negation and conjunction respectively.<\/font> <\/p>\n<p style=\"TEXT-ALIGN: justify\"><font face=\"Georgia\"><\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"hidden\" style=\"DISPLAY: block; TEXT-ALIGN: justify\"><font face=\"Georgia\">How is \u2018or\u2019 functioning in this sentence: \u2018Philosophers of a realist bent posit facts or states of affairs as truth-makers.\u2019 Clearly, no disjunction is being conveyed. The idea is that facts just are states of affairs, or that \u2018fact\u2019 and \u2018state of affairs\u2019 are being used interchangeably. Indeed, the preceding sentence exemplifies a use of \u2018or\u2019 that does not express a disjunction. Hence, \u2018or\u2019 of identity. Such uses of \u2018or\u2019 can be replaced by \u2018i.e.,\u2019 <em>id est<\/em>.<\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"hidden\" style=\"DISPLAY: block; TEXT-ALIGN: justify\"><font face=\"Georgia\">Why is this important? Well, it is important if your aim to is write and think with precision and self-awareness. If that is not your aim, then it ought to be.<\/font><\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u2018Or\u2019 is a troublesome particle in dire need of regimentation. Besides its two disjunctive meanings, the inclusive and the exclusive, there is also what I call the \u2018or\u2019 of identity. The inclusive meaning, corresponding to the Latin vel, is illustrated by \u2018He is either morally obtuse or intellectually obtuse.\u2019 This allows that the person in &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2009\/02\/24\/three-senses-of-or\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Three Senses of &#8216;Or&#8217;&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,108],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12798","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-language-matters","category-logica-docens"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12798","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12798"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12798\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}