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Full Idea
If there is an upper bound on the length of understandable sentences, then two understandable sentences can have an unintelligible conjunction.
Gist of Idea
Two long understandable sentences can have an unintelligible conjunction
Source
Roy Sorensen (Vagueness and Contradiction [2001], 6.4)
Book Ref
Sorensen,Roy: 'Vagueness and Contradiction' [OUP 2004], p.101
A Reaction
Not a huge paradox about the use of the word 'and', perhaps, but a nice little warning to be clear about what is being claimed before you cheerfully assert a screamingly obvious law of thought, such as conjunction.
| 19360 | General principles, even if unconscious, are indispensable for thinking [Leibniz] |
| 19404 | Necessities rest on contradiction, and contingencies on sufficient reason [Leibniz] |
| 7807 | The laws of thought are true, but they are not the axioms of logic [Bolzano, by George/Van Evra] |
| 6933 | The laws of reality are also the laws of thought [Feuerbach] |
| 8939 | We should not describe human laws of thought, but how to correctly track truth [Frege, by Fisher] |
| 5396 | Three Laws of Thought: identity, contradiction, and excluded middle [Russell] |
| 5405 | The law of contradiction is not a 'law of thought', but a belief about things [Russell] |
| 9131 | Two long understandable sentences can have an unintelligible conjunction [Sorensen] |
| 6560 | The law of noncontradiction is traditionally the most basic principle of rationality [Fogelin] |