""A worker CAN dispose of a shipment if a recipient cannot eat any apple within"
I think this sentence means the same thing as my example sentence. If "a recipient can eat any apple within the shipment", they can eat every single apple because any is universal here, the apple is arbitrarily selected. The reason it is universal is because, as my judgement notes, any is almost always universal in positive sentences like this one. If a recipient CANNOT eat just a single apple, it is untrue that they CAN eat "any" apple. This logic was not the logic of my judgement but it would sustain it. But I think in this case "the Auctioneer of that Auction cannot transfer any item included in a lot in that Auction" is a phrase that is different to "a recipient cannot eat any apple within the shipment" because in this context we are _really_ talking about the item itself being nontransferable by law, although the auctioneer is the actor in this sentence as grammatically written. Whereas in your example we seem to be talking a lot more about whether any theoretical recipient could actually eat it, which makes your sentence a very different sentence from "if the apple cannot be eaten". In this case, I don't think "the auctioneer cannot transfer" is different to "any lot can be transferred". On Mon, Apr 6, 2020 at 2:52 PM Alexis Hunt via agora-business < agora-busin...@agoranomic.org> wrote: > On Sun, 5 Apr 2020 at 23:46, Aris Merchant via agora-discussion < > agora-discussion@agoranomic.org> wrote: > > > I'm not actually convinced by the region example; I initially read that > the > > other way, and on rereading think it's ambiguous. Still, the apple > example > > seems sound, and I find that a good enough as an analogue. Good > judgement! > > > > -Aris > > > > I'm not sure I agree. In my view, there is a clear distinguishing factor. > In the apple example, the "cannot" appears after the "any", while in the > rule at issue, it appears before. This is a critical distinction. The > corresponding apple phrase would be "A worker CAN dispose of a shipment if > a recipient cannot eat any apple within". If I may make appeals to the > principles of first-order logic, (using words instead of symbols, for the > sake of those not used to logic notation), suppose we let P(x) mean "x can > be eaten" and Q mean "the shipment can be disposed of" (with x ranging over > all apples in the shipment). > > Then the judge's example is clearly equivalent to "If there exists an x > such that P(x) is false, then Q". This is logically equivalent to "If, for > all x, P(x) is true, then Q". But by contrast, if we have the statement "If > there does not exist an x such that P(x) is true, then Q", the logical > equivalent is "If, for all x, P(x) is false, then Q." > > Breaking down the English of "if a recipient cannot eat any apple within", > "eat any apple within" is a relative clause that is negated by "cannot". In > my opinion, this most strongly resembles "If there does not exist an x such > that P(x) is true". To interpret it otherwise requires either changing the > way that "cannot" binds or interpreting "any" as a universal (for all) > quantifier, rather than existential (there exists) quantifier. I contend > that this is not the most straightforward way to convert the English into > the language of logic, and once we have done so, the conclusion of TRUE on > the CFJ must follow. > > I intend, with 2 support, to file a motion to reconsider CFJ 3826; the > above needs to be addressed, at minimum. > -- >From R. Lee
