{"id":5100,"date":"2017-10-29T12:52:04","date_gmt":"2017-10-29T12:52:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2017\/10\/29\/a-point-of-logic-journalists-ought-to-be-aware-of\/"},"modified":"2017-10-29T12:52:04","modified_gmt":"2017-10-29T12:52:04","slug":"a-point-of-logic-journalists-ought-to-be-aware-of","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2017\/10\/29\/a-point-of-logic-journalists-ought-to-be-aware-of\/","title":{"rendered":"A Simple Point of Logic Journalists Ought to be Aware Of"},"content":{"rendered":"

One often encounters sentences like this one:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

There are many arenas in which all ideas are not considered equal.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This example is from a recent piece in Vox<\/em>. I could give further recent examples, but one is enough. To simplify, consider just the core thought:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

All ideas are not considered equal.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Unfortunately it is not entirely clear what the core thought is. For the sentence is ambiguous as between <\/span><\/p>\n

\n

1) No ideas are considered equal<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

and<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

2) Some ideas are not considered equal.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The thoughts (propositions) expressed are distinct since the first can be false while the second is true. Although it is fairly clear that the author intended (2), a good writer avoids ambiguous constructions unless for some reason he intends them. So don't write sentences of the form<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

3) All Fs are not Gs <\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

if you intend say something of the form<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

4) Some Fs are not Gs.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Write instead sentences of the form<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

5) Not all Fs are Gs<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

which, by simple quantifier negation, is equivalent to (4). <\/span><\/p>\n

Class dismissed.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One often encounters sentences like this one: There are many arenas in which all ideas are not considered equal. This example is from a recent piece in Vox. I could give further recent examples, but one is enough. To simplify, consider just the core thought: All ideas are not considered equal. Unfortunately it is not … Continue reading “A Simple Point of Logic Journalists Ought to be Aware Of”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49,6,113],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5100","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-journalism","category-language-matters","category-logica-utens"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5100","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=5100"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5100\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}