[FOM] Why inclusive disjunction?

Kenny Easwaran easwaran at berkeley.edu
Wed Jan 10 01:38:51 EST 2007


One reason is just that the inclusive "or" has good introduction and
elimination rules?  Also, it's a nice dual to "and".

And perhaps a more principled reason is that given some basic Gricean
reasoning, we can see why the inclusive "or" would often get
interpreted in an exclusive sense, but the reverse is much harder.

On 1/9/07, John Baldwin <jbaldwin at uic.edu> wrote:
>
> I am preparing to teach a course in `proof'.
>
> Can anyone provide a principled reason for why logicians choose to
>   interpret "or" as inclusive disjunction?
>
> I understand that in the interpretations of statutes, the exclusive or
> is the default.  So attorney's have made a different choice of
> `formalization'.
>
>
>
>
> John T. Baldwin
> Director, Office of Mathematics Education
> Department of Mathematics, Statistics,
> and Computer Science  M/C 249
> jbaldwin at uic.edu
> 312-413-2149
> Room 327 Science and Engineering Offices (SEO)
> 851 S. Morgan
> Chicago, IL 60607
>
> Assistant to the director
> Jan Nekola: 312-413-3750
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