Sewing-Machine comments on Meaning of the word "the" - Less Wrong

1 Post author: Perplexed 10 April 2011 03:53PM

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Comment author: [deleted] 11 April 2011 10:06:30PM 0 points [-]

By your reasoning what's the status of

  1. "all wives of John have red hair"
  2. "a wife of John has red hair"
Comment author: Perplexed 11 April 2011 10:56:27PM 1 point [-]

Assuming John remains unmarried, 1 is true and 2 is false. But, "the youngest wife of John" fails to denote, and the claim that this nonexistent entity has red hair is meaningless. That is my story, and I'm sticking to it.