[FOM] Why inclusive disjunction

Thomas Forster T.Forster at dpmms.cam.ac.uk
Thu Jan 11 04:59:03 EST 2007


There are various reasons.  Inclusive disjunction is an easier primitive
to use, for one thing.  A common observation made by philosophers who
worry about this kind of thing (usually the philosophers who have to teach
baby logic!) is that in the overwhelming majority of cases where one is
tempted to formalise an ordinary-language use of OR as an XOR it is
because of the semantics of the propositions involved - the two disjuncts
are contraries.  That is to say, cases that seem to argue for formalising
`or' as `XOR' almost always turn out not be be.

 But one could go mad worrying about this!



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