Roseners, and anybody else vaguely interested in category theory.
Rosen seems to be interested in situations in which A maps to B but not all the
values in B can be generated by the mapping.
this is a lot like the Intension and the Extension of an utterance. I say with
assurance that Mrs. Vanderbilt wished to sail on the Titanic. In this case,
Mrs Vanderbilt's "wanting" is a function (mathematical sense) that maps from
her wants to a subset of the properties of the Titanic. All the properties of
the Titanic constitute (in philosophic lingo ) it's extension. The subset, the
"image" of Mrs Vanderbilt's wanting , constitutes the intension of her
utterance, "I want to sail on the Titanic." Among the titanic's attributes,
but outside that image, is the property "hit an iceberg in the North Atlantic
and sank."
I guess the question is whether there is a less tortured mathematics than
category theory that would allow one to talk about these things.
N
Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
Clark University ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
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