- (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} entangledbank) wrote,@ 2004-05-31 21:49:00 |
|
Logic at play
Why does this sentence delight me so much? I think it might be this: it sounds utterly illogical, but is utterly logical. We conflate causation and entailment. Well, we don't, but our formal logic does, with its single connective for 'if...then' that formally means entailment. But we much more commonly speak of causation rather than pure entailment, so we read the above sentence causally. It conjures up some fantasy where taking the tripos back then would have led to a chain of events such as getting a medical degree, finding a cure, ...
What she actually meant* can be reconstructed with the odd suppressed major premiss and modus tollens, in some order or other: no females in the 19th century were able to take the Classics tripos, I suffer from gynaecological infections, therefore I would not be able to take the Classics tripos in the 19th century, therefore I am female... Only we already knew that, so I must have the order wrong. Something o' that, anyway.
* A friend of mine here, quoted with kind permission, in a context that is private but can be summed up briefly: female problems were interfering with her studying for exams.
Oh, one more thing. You can't get much more of a hypothetical situation than that, but the mood is indicative, just as I would say it. I found an example in Tolkien the other day with 'if I was' in a strongly hypothetical situation, confirming that the subjunctive is moribund in colloquial English (of our dialect anyway) and has been so for a long time.
If I was able to take the Classics tripos in the 19th century, I'd be unlikely to suffer from gynaecological infections.
Why does this sentence delight me so much? I think it might be this: it sounds utterly illogical, but is utterly logical. We conflate causation and entailment. Well, we don't, but our formal logic does, with its single connective for 'if...then' that formally means entailment. But we much more commonly speak of causation rather than pure entailment, so we read the above sentence causally. It conjures up some fantasy where taking the tripos back then would have led to a chain of events such as getting a medical degree, finding a cure, ...
What she actually meant* can be reconstructed with the odd suppressed major premiss and modus tollens, in some order or other: no females in the 19th century were able to take the Classics tripos, I suffer from gynaecological infections, therefore I would not be able to take the Classics tripos in the 19th century, therefore I am female... Only we already knew that, so I must have the order wrong. Something o' that, anyway.
* A friend of mine here, quoted with kind permission, in a context that is private but can be summed up briefly: female problems were interfering with her studying for exams.
Oh, one more thing. You can't get much more of a hypothetical situation than that, but the mood is indicative, just as I would say it. I found an example in Tolkien the other day with 'if I was' in a strongly hypothetical situation, confirming that the subjunctive is moribund in colloquial English (of our dialect anyway) and has been so for a long time.
