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Question regarding "all"

wonsuh1076wonsuh1076 Member
in Logical Reasoning 68 karma

I have a question regarding the use of the word "all". If a sentence proceeds in this manner: Cats are happy animals. Even if the "all" is not included before cats, can I appropriately assume that ALL cats are happy animals? or is it MOST cats are happy animals? or other choices?

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  • robotsoaprobotsoap Alum Member
    87 karma

    Yes, in the absence of a quantifier, it is safe to assume that "cats are happy" is a universal statement. However, if the statement is "the cats are happy," it wouldn't necessarily apply universally for all cats as the word "the" may denote a particular set of cats.

  • wonsuh1076wonsuh1076 Member
    68 karma

    oh interesting. If the statement was "A cat is an happy animal", I can safely assume that the sentence is universal as well?

  • robotsoaprobotsoap Alum Member
    87 karma

    It depends. If "A cat is a happy animal" is a full statement by itself, the statement would be universal. If instead, the sentence is "There is a cat who is a happy animal", this wouldn't necessarily be universal since "there is" denotes a particular cat.

  • Law and YodaLaw and Yoda Alum Member ⭐
    4306 karma

    I would think you shouldn't assume at all...we don't know for sure if ALL cats are happy, if we knew that then we could say most and some as well. I would review the some and most relationship lesson in the CC again for clarification!

  • robotsoaprobotsoap Alum Member
    edited April 2020 87 karma

    @"Law and Yoda-Brandi" said:
    I would think you shouldn't assume at all...we don't know for sure if ALL cats are happy, if we knew that then we could say most and some as well. I would review the some and most relationship lesson in the CC again for clarification!

    I'm not sure I agree with you there. In the absence of a quantifier, a statement like "cats are happy" is universal by itself, so it necessarily assumes "all" as the absent quantifier. If we illustrate this as a syllogism, we might be able to intuit that "cats are happy" is indeed a universal statement.

    1. Socrates is a cat
    2. Cats are happy
    3. Therefore, Socrates is happy

    The term "cats" by itself is universal as it speaks to the category of cats given that it is absent of an explicit quantifier. Thus, the conclusion logically follows as the particular cat (Socrates) is included in the category of cats in premise 2.

    That said, it is important to note - as you've noted - that the quantifiers "some" and "most" can be included in "all" as well.

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