From: JohnBARACH@aol.com
Date: Tue Jun 03 1997 - 18:01:43 EDT
On Jun 3, 3:06pm, Paul Dixon - Ladd Hill Bible Church wrote:
> I question your differentiation, however, between "not all A is B" and
> "all A are not B". Concerning the latter, you conclude that no A is B.
> In doing so, you are equating "All A are not B" to the conditional
> thought, "A implies not B." The problem, however, is that this does not
> follow. "All A are not B" can be interpreted to mean that some A are not
> B. The key may be the meaning of PAS hO (or, PANTES hOI). It is every
> member of the class individually that is being considered, rather than the
> class as a whole. Thus, "not every one who is from Israel is a true
> Israelite" = "every one who is from Israel is not a true Israelite." The
> former, to be sure, is better, but I fail to see a necessary difference.
Um ... I realize this is not a logic mailing list, but ...
There is a world of difference between "All A is not B" and "Not all A is B."
"All A is not B" can be converted into a conditional statement (as is
commonly done in logic exercises): "If A then not B." If "All cats are not
dogs" then "If Fluffy is a cat, then Fluffy is not a dog." On the other
hand, "Not all A is B" leaves room for *some* A to be B. There is no
possible way to conclude from "All A is B" that some A might not be B.
If we say, as you propose, "Everyone who is from Israel is not a true
Israelite" then we are saying that Paul, Matthew, John, Aquila, Priscilla and
countless others who are certainly in the class of EX ISRAHL (i.e., descended
from Israel/Jacob) are NOT true Israelites. This is certainly not what Paul
is saying. The question of what the NOT modifies, therefore, must be
addressed.
John
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